Mum labeled ‘cruel’ for defrosting sandwiches she makes for kids lunches every two weeks

'My mum used to do this it absolutely traumatised us'

And, perhaps not surprisingly, not everyone thinks Samantha Lee Woods' lunch hack, is a good one, even if she says her children have never complained.

"I can absolutely bet, that they do complain, just not to you. they be going straight in the bin for sure," one person commented on Samantha's TikTok post about her meal-deal.

Another wrote: "My mum used to do this it absolutely traumatised us. Summertime the bread would be soggy from the condensation in the bag winter frozen in the middle."

A third added: "My mum used to do the same thing when I was a kid it tastes horrible and I used to chuck it in the bin at school."

Samantha, from Australia, explained in her video that she makes two weeks' worth of sandwiches at once, then puts them in the freezer. She then takes one sandwich out each day for each of her five kids, so it's defrosted by lunchtime.

"So this is how I make fortnight's worth of sandwiches ahead of time for my children's lunch boxes," Samantha says in her video, standing over a table worth of white slices of bread.

"I freeze them and they always defrost beautifully, as if they were made from fresh bread, and my children have never complained once. Not about the sandwiches, anyway."

Samantha then demonstrated exactly how she does it: "I lay it all out, I know exactly how many sandwiches I need for the fortnight for each child."

She reassured viewers that her children, "don't just have sandwiches every single day", rather than have a "main meal item" for their lunch boxes that is written on a piece of paper inside her pantry, "so I know how many Vegemite sandwiches, how many peanut butter sandwiches and how many chicken sandwiches I need for each child to last us throughout the fortnight."

Samantha said she "really" likes her system, saying before she started making meals in bulk she would always run out of ingredients.

"I would always find that I needed to make sandwiches and I never had fresh enough bread. Then I would have to go out to the shops to get the bread and I would have to get money and it was just a real hassle. Not to mention I would have to go through the whole process of making sandwiches in each flavour for my children to be able to pack lunch boxes."

Samantha said her bulk lunch hack takes about 20 minutes, "but it saves me so much time and so much money when it comes to packing their lunch boxes on a daily basis. Definitely worth it."

When all the sandwiches are ready, Samatha wraps them in cling film, labels each sandwich with her children's names then freezes them.

In the caption on the post, Samantha revealed that her "game changer" lunch move "saves both time and money" and that she uses 3.5 loaves of bread it costs around $13 (£6.70) as she buys "the most delicious bakery bread as it freezes and defrosts so beautifully."

Responding to the comment that her children must complain, Samantha wrote: "Fortunately for you, I'm not a betting woman because you are wrong, they don't go in the bin because only the crusts remain in their lunchboxes."

One commenter said they also make their lunches in advance, without issue: "Do this for the week for my sandwich for work never soggy or yuk, I love it."

However, others didn't think the hack was worth it: "Yep, no thanks, I'd rather spend 5 minutes to make fresh ones," one person wrote. Another seconded it, writing: "Just make it in the morning it takes less than 5 mins."

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