Improving School Lunches
A month or two into the school year, children and parents often encounter visions of a never-ending assembly line of dull, unchanging school lunches. Parents can get as tired of making peanut-butter sandwiches as children are of eating them. (It seems incredible that Harriet the Spy could eat a tomato sandwich for lunch every single day without getting sick of them or just plain sick.) If you're a parent, you might be concerned about the healthfulness of school-provided lunches, but can't think of easy and tasty alternatives to pack for your kids.
Nutrition is particularly important in school lunches. Your children's lunches have to keep them alert and attentive for the rest of the school day. However, the lunches also must be tasty enough to keep your kids from stuffing them into the trash when no one is looking and surviving the afternoon on vending-machine snacks.
We at Carousel Pediatrics would like to recommend a few suggestions for lunches your kids might want to eat—or that you might even want to try.
Get everyone involved. Sit down with your kids and find out what they'd prefer to eat for lunch. ("Candy corn is not a vegetable.") Use their input to plan lunches. Encourage older children to make their own lunches after setting rules and providing nutritious ingredients.
Avoid pre-packaged lunchboxes. Yes, the little round slices of meat and cheese that fit exactly on the crackers are adorable. They're also high in fat and salt, and most of these "convenience meals" don't include servings of fruit and vegetables. It doesn't take much more time to provide whole-grain crackers, thin slices of low-sodium meat, and non-processed cheese. If your kids want to help, they can cut meat and cheese into adorable shapes with cookie cutters. Add some carrot sticks or cucumbers and an apple or banana, and hey! That's lunch.
Also, avoid boxed juice drinks that are high in sugar. Try packing a thermos with diluted juice or water instead. To keep drinks cold, freeze an inch or so of the drink in the thermos the night before, then add the rest in the morning.
Find healthful versions of the foods your kids like. Do they prefer sandwiches? See if you can get away with using whole-grain breads and low-sodium meat. Include fresh fruit or unsweetened applesauce instead of fruit canned in syrup. Snacks like potato chips and candy aren't going to help your kids get through the school day, so try pickles, dried fruit (like raisins or trail mix), or raw veggies instead. Consider limiting sugary snacks to occasional days instead of a daily treat.
Wrap it up. Instead of a traditional sandwich, try using tortillas or pitas instead. Turkey and cheese rolled with a tortilla and sliced into little rounds can make a fun change from standard sandwiches.
Keep it fresh (and safe). Many lunchboxes come with cold packs you can freeze ahead of time to keep cold foods like meat and cheese from getting warm and spoiled, or you can buy a cold pack yourself and slip it in the side of the box. Frozen grapes also do the trick. Use a thermos or other insulated container for hot foods.
Have some fun. If the budget permits, you can find all kinds of interesting lunchboxes and kits to pack and store a variety of healthy and tasty items: Laptop Lunchboxes, Japanese bento boxes, tiffins, insulated multi-tier jars, and more. You can buy cute lunch picks and dividers, molds that transform a hard-boiled egg into a train or bunny, slicers that turn a hot dog into an octopus, and molds for making rice balls (onigiri). A quick Google search on "lunch bento boxes" will introduce you to these methods of making and packing portable meals.
Finally, a search on Google using the term "healthy school lunches" produces dozens of pages with creative ideas for sandwiches, healthful treats, and veggie snacks that kids might actually enjoy. Check it out yourself!