Easy & Healthy School Lunches
Brown-Bag Lunches for Your Kids that are Good for Them & Fun
Nov 12, 2009
It's simply not a viable option to send your child through the school cafeteria line each day with $10.00 and expect them to get something healthy.
Save that money and start a trendy habit of packing a lunch for them everyday.
"Healthy" is a fad that's sweeping the nation right now, and it will be here to stay. It's "in" right now, and so is being frugal. So, children will not be "embarrassed" to bring a brown bag lunch or bento box to school, as they will certainly not be the only kids bringing their lunch.
Of paramount importance is keeping your children healthy, especially with this cold and flu season coming up and the worry of the H1N1 virus. Ensuring your children are healthy requires that they are physically active and eat a healthy diet.
Here's how you can improve their lunchs and boost their immune systems too!
Think of food as being in 6 Groups:
- Whole Grains – This includes whole grain bread for sandwiches or even pitas. There are great whole grain pastas available and brown rice too. You may not think of whole grains past bread, but you can mix it up with these other options, making lunch more interesting and a surprise for them.
- Fruit – We all know what fruit is typical in a school lunch and they're just as healthy as they were when we were kids - apples, bananas, grapes, melon and berries are all great choices. However, think outside the box and include fruit juice as a serving of fruit or even 100% fruit spread. Oh yes, don't forget that tomatoes are actually fruit as well.
- Calcium – This includes dairy foods such as yogurt, cheese,milk, tofu, even soy milk. However, there are other surprising sources of calcium like dark leafy greens, almonds or almond butter beans and 100% orange juice. Surprising, right?
- Healthy Fat – Nuts and nut butters are great sources, as well as things like avocado, flax seeds or oil that are easy to drizzle or sprinkle on foods, salmon, and even extra virgin olive oil. * Be aware of school policies on bringing nuts, nut products or products manufactured where they process nuts.
- Protein – Again, nuts and nut butters are chock full of protein, but seafood, hard boiled eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, lean beef, seeds, and beans like edamame, or cheeses have significant amounts of protein in them. * Again, be aware of school policies on bringing nuts, nut products or products manufactured where they process nuts.
- Vegetables – Send them with the traditional veggies like celery and carrot sticks, but other vegetables are easy to pack and handle for kids like cherry or grape tomatoes, broccoli or cauliflower, and peas. Try adding a small spinach salad, 100% vegetable juice, lettuce, or cabbage. Whatever they like for dinner, they'll also eat for lunch.
Now that we're thinking of food as being in 6 different groups, you simply choose an item from each of those categories to include in your family's brown-bag lunches, husbands and wives included.
How much more exciting, interesting, fun and healthy are these ideas for lunch? Plus, they're much more inexpensive than paying for food at the cafeteria where you aren't sure of the health benefits. Don't forget that cafeteria style food often proves to increase exposure to viruses, bacteria and germs.
Sound like a lot of food? Well, lunches must be filling, but still be mindful of your portion sizes. Take care not to send a complete Smorgasbord inside their lunch bag or bento box.
A helpful, healthy tip is to also include as much color as you can in the lunch. Basically, the more colorful a natural food is, the healthier it is to eat. Color also makes things more fun.
Examples include bright peppers, orange mango, red cherries, blueberries, dark green leafy lettuce or spinach, purple grapes, or pickled beets.
Hungry, anyone?
Most of all, have fun, try to surprise your family with what's for lunch and even let those kids help you make their own lunches. Try letting them choose the foods from each category they would enjoy eating that day.
Your family will think you're a gourmet chef!
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