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Salon
Salon
Lifestyle
Rachel Tepper Paley

5 tricks to make school lunches better

Lunch box with animal-shaped foods Getty Images/yajimannbo

The bento-style lunches that TikTok star Jessica Woo packs for her three young kids are, in a word, amazing. "Let's make some lunch for my kids!" Woo announces at the start of most of her cooking videos. In one, Woo molds an adorable bear out of white ricecomplete with eyes, mouth, and paws made of delicate nori cutouts. In another, she conjures an entire Squid Game-inspired spread featuring hot dog "squids" and the show's iconic dalgona candy. It's little surprise that Woo's TikTok channel has more than 5.5 million followers. Her creations are enough to make us wonder: Can Woo make our lunches, too?

They're also enough to stir up some feelings of, ahem, inadequacy, in even the best of us — case in point, this hilarious guy. But fear not: You don't have to go all-out to improve your kid's lunch situation. Even Woo agrees. "It's just the little things," she says. Most of what's so impressive about her meals is the presentation, she adds, and even small adjustments can have a major visual impact. "If you're packaging it in this pretty way, [the food itself] can literally be dinner leftovers," she says.

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