If you think vegan lunchtime means peanut butter and jelly day after day, think again! Based on the wildly popular blog of the same name, Vegan Lunch Box offers an amazing array of meat-free, egg-free, and dairy-free meals and snacks. All the recipes are organized into menus to help parents pack quick, nutritious, and irresistible vegan lunches. Ideal for everyday and special occasions, Vegan Lunch Box features tips for feeding even the most finicky kids. It includes handy allergen-free indexes identifying wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free recipes, and product recommendations that make shopping a breeze.

No matter how good a mother’s intentions, it will often seem that the world doesn’t want children to be vegan. From birthday parties to day camp outings, being a child in America means being offered animal products dozens of times each year. And of all the hazards facing the vegan child, none compares to what happens every day during the school lunch period.

School cafeterias are enemy territory to vegetarian and vegan kids. Nearly all these cafeterias serve as the dumping grounds for thecommodity meat and dairy products purchased by the USDA’s price support program. What’s worse, meat industry lobbyists have succeeded in shaping the National School Lunch Program’s nutritional guidelines, so that protein requirements and saturated fat allowances are kept unreasonably high. In consequence, most school cafeterias serve meals that resemble some Frankensteinian mishmash of all the worst foods McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Long John Silver’s have to offer. Breaded nuggets and french fries, anyone?