Pablo Kraus is passionate about health. The Ecostore managing director juggles helping run the health and sustainability-focused company, with being Superdad to kids Lucien (6) and Claudia (4). It's safe to say he knows a thing or two about health, the environment and parenting.
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Kraus has popped together some top tips for making the back to school panic a breeze.
What are some ways you try and cut down on waste with your kids heading back to school? It can be such a plastic filled time!
We have a zero tolerance for plastic or packaging in our school lunch boxes. This is actually imposed by both our kids' Kindergarten and Primary School, which I think is fantastic at educating not only children but parents. We have special metal lunch boxes from Huckleberry that have compartments allowing us to keep their food fresh and separated.
How do you go about packing the best possible lunchbox for your kids? So many snacks are filled with sugar!
We like to pack a well-rounded lunch box that doesn't include any packaging and totally avoids refined sugar. (Not all sugar is bad however; we use renewable sugarcane for our plastic packaging at Ecostore as it's lighter for the environment).
Generally their lunch boxes include fruit (strawberries, blueberries, apples, mandarin, pineapple or whatever is in season), a sandwich or homemade leftover pizza, cheese and crackers, a handful of popcorn, and a couple organic cookies.
Instead of buying individually wrapped kid's lunch box packets we buy, for example, a large bag of popcorn that can be used over the week.
What are some of your go-to treats during the back to school period?
Our kids love seaweed snacks, popcorn, dried fruit chunks, watermelon, and cheese and crackers.
What are some of your top tips for making this time as stress-free as possible?
I'm a big fan of packing lunches the night before. This makes it much easier at focusing on the other tasks at hand in the morning. We've also been big on encouraging our kids to prepare for the day from as young as possible. We'll make them breakfast, but after that 9/10 times they're able to get dressed, brush their teeth, brush their hair and get their shoes on and be ready to walk to school with me. I guess you could say our kids Lucien and Claudia are well trained but like most Kiwi families, there is the odd morning it doesn't go to plan - we're all human after all.
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