The Basics Of A Better Lunch

School days are here, but even if you don’t have school aged kids a lunch still needs to be made (that goes for you too, mums). We’ve talked about the ABC’s of Packing a Healthy School Lunch, so let’s take a look at the 6 basics of building a better lunch for kids (and mums!):

1. The ingredients: The first essential is the ingredients. While Mum Mum’s advocates eating organic, the bottom line for feeding your family is to choose the best quality ingredients you can reasonably afford. There is no need to break the bank on fancy foods, but particularly with kids’ foods marketers aim for fast, convenient, and unfortunately highly processed and very unhealthy.
2. The main dish: Keep things fresh by thinking beyond the sandwich. Try wraps, dips, pasta salad, soup in a thermos, tacos, burritos, or even dinner leftovers. Visit Family Fun for more fun main dish ideas.
3. Presentation: This is up high on the list for a reason – it doesn’t matter what you serve; if looks totally unappealing to your child, they won’t touch it. Keep sandwich toppings in a separate bag to avoid sogginess, add an ice pack if you are packing foods that need to stay cold or a thermos for hot foods. If you don’t want to vary what you actually make for lunch or have a picky eater, a serious bang for your buck is a new lunchbox like at Laptop Lunches. They are super fun Bento style lunchboxes sure to make even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich look fresh and new.
4. Add a fruit: Every lunch should offer a piece of fruit, and be sure to branch out from just apples and bananas. There is a whole wide world of fruit just waiting to be tasted!
5. Sneak in a veggie: Sneak at least one veggie into your child’s lunch like lettuce rolled into wrap, wilted spinach hidden in a taco, add some salsa (yes, it counts as a veggie), thinly sliced cucumber on a sandwich, veggies pureed into soup, or chopped into tiny pieces with yesterday’s pasta for a pasta salad. You can always go the obvious route by adding chunks of fresh vegetables with a dip like hummus or low-fat ranch dressing on the side.
6. Hydrating beverage: Avoid the trap of artificially flavored, non-nutritive drinks – even those claiming to be hydrating. Kids have a short time to eat, and you don’t want to fill their tummies with empty nutrients that won’t help them make it through the school day. Opt for water in a reusable bottle; you can make it fun by adding orange or cucumber slices to the bottle (there’s a fruit and veggie!), frozen berries to act as ice cubes, or an Emergen-C Kidz to add some flavor and color without anything artificial. If you do go for juice, make sure it’s always 100% fruit juice.