Back-to-School Spending: 7 Great Value Lunch Foods To Skip at Walmart

We all know Walmart as a place where you can expect to find everything on your back-to-school shopping list at a great price — even food for lunches. Walmart’s grocery section’s large size is partly due to their house brand Great Value, which has their own alternative versions of well-known favorites like Oreos.

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Even though Great Value items are priced cheaper, not everything they make is worth adding to your kid’s lunch. GOBankingRates put together this list of seven Great Value foods that you should think twice about implementing into your household for back-to-school season.

Though it seems like a nice alternative to peanut butter for PB&J’s, you might want to steer clear of making this your go-to for nut butter. Just two tablespoons of this butter is packed with 20% of your recommended daily saturated fat intake. It also only has 1 gram of protein per serving, which is a fraction of how much peanut butter has. If you’re looking for a tasty spread, a 16.3 Oz jar of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter is a fraction of the cost of this cookie butter.

A quickly prepped meal is key for completing any fast-paced morning. This breakfast bowl by Great Value might help you and your kid keep pace with a hectic-or regular-morning, but it’ll slow you down later in the day. One serving has 980 mg of sodium, 235 mg of cholesterol and 33 g of fat. If these are a daily go-to for breakfast, meal planning and making your own breakfast bowls could be a healthier and cheaper option in the long run, depending on its chosen ingredients.

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These potato wedges look like they’d fit alongside a breakfast sandwich, but upon looking at the nutrition facts, you’ll see why it makes this list. Only four potato wedges-which makes up a serving-is 500mg of sodium which takes up a whopping 22% of your recommended daily sodium intake alone, which is a pretty extreme way to start the day. Great Value has potato alternatives like their crinkle-cut fries which have a fraction of the sodium and cost the same for 32 Oz.

These iced honey buns look like a great idea when you want to add a big surprise to your kid’s lunch, but watch out; 40% of your recommended daily sugar intake is packed into just one bun. One bun also has 40% of your recommended daily fat intake. It’d be wiser to redirect your money towards healthier treats for your kids like Nature Valley bars, which are actually two cents cheaper.

Looking for a tasty refresher for your kids on hotter days? Don’t stop here, keep looking. One glass of this Great Value lemonade has almost 50% of the recommended amount of sugar you should have in a day. It’s also more expensive than some other bigger-name-brand lemonades on the shelves.

Breakfast is the first meal of the day, so it partially dictates how you’ll feel through the rest of the day. Kicking the day off with a bowl of Great Value Fruit Spins might start you and your kid off at a lower point than you’d want to. You’d be starting your day with 36% of your recommended daily sugar intake, which sounds like a potential headache by noon. If you want a sweet healthier cereal, then consider an 18.8 Oz box of Honey Nut Cheerios for less than two dollars more, which is a good price for a healthier way to start the day.

A sandwich can be the focal point of a bag lunch. It’d be wise to make it without this thin sliced roast beef. One serving which is just 2 oz of meat is 560 mg of sodium! The main course of your kid’s bag lunch should have a meat that’s healthier and doesn’t give 23% of the daily recommended intake of sodium in a few slices. You might want to consider a meat like Hormel’s 8 Oz Oven Roasted Deli Turkey Lunch Meat which is healthier for a little over a dollar more.

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