Story in today’s The News & Observer about the high cost and other challenges of feeding kids a healthy lunch at school. Healthy food is more expensive — and thus costs the kids/parents more — and because most high schools at least let older kids leave campus over lunch, there’s competition from the outside. I believe McDonald’s Dollar Menu was mentioned.

There is one alternative that gets short-shrift in this discussion. You can avoid the issue altogether, this lack of healthy choices in the cash-strapped school cafeteria, by having your kids take their own lunch. Make it a joint effort: You lay out the various healthy/fun choices available, they decide what they want to take, you buy it, they pack it and eat it. End of parental hand-wringing and kvetching over what they’re feeding our poor children at school. No more listening to your kids daily recital of the yellow food they had for lunch (corn dog, fries, Mountain Dew).

Don’t say you don’t have time to deal with lunch: You have to go to the store anyway. Don’t say you can’t get your kids to make their own lunch: Once they discover the alternative — no lunch money + no bagged lunch = no lunch — they’ll come around. They can spare 10 minutes of Cartoon Network in the morning to make lunch.

And there’s lots of good advice on the Web about healthy lunch choices and strategies. Here are three sites to get you started:

About.com Key tip: Let your kids take “fun” food — cold pizza, pasta, chips — just keep an eye on portion size.

FamilyFun.com Key tip: Psst, wraps.

epicurious.com Key Tip: Once the kids get used to the idea of taking their lunch, encourage them to get creative with the likes of the Peanut Butter Berry-Wich and Mini Whoopie Pies.

Photo: Back in the ’60s, lunch was always an adventure with Admiral Nelson and Commander Crane.