Creative Lunch Box Ideas
Children's lunches are an important meal. Many children have a fast breakfast or skip breakfast altogether. Children's lunches containing peanut butter and jelly or lunch meat sandwiches are uninspired and sometimes, unhealthy. You can encourage healthy eating habits with your children by changing the kinds of foods you pack for lunch.
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Allow Children's Help
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Allowing children to pack and create their lunches eliminates much of the problem of children not eating their lunches or trading it away. Children can help prepare the lunches the day before, or in the morning before, school. Allow the children to choose some of the items in their lunches each day. Create a chart of food options, including main meal, side dishes and desserts. Allow the child to choose one from each category. Children can also choose from a lunch theme, such as Mexican, American or Italian.
Themed Lunches
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A themed lunch is a fun way to add more variety to your child's lunches. Try a Greek-inspired meal with rice, olives, feta cheese and chicken wrapped in grape leaves. Make several kinds of muffins, such as raisin, carrot or zucchini and pack them one day for a muffin theme. Pack a Japanese Bento box theme with fresh fruits, vegetables, hard-boiled eggs and vegetable sushi. Pack perishable items in a lunch box that keeps hot food hot and cold food cold. If you don't have a lunch bag or box that will keep foods cold or hot, choose themes from foods that stay fresh at room temperature, such as a build your own salad or sandwich lunch with each lunch item placed in a small container for children to build themselves during lunch. Choose one theme per day, or you could have theme weeks. Keep meals interesting, but always have one or two items you know your child will eat.
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Make Lunch Special
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One way to keep children interested in their lunches is to make each meal special. You can do this by cutting the food into fun shapes with cookie cutters, adding special notes, hiding a small treat in the lunches or decorating foods to look like animals or other unusual shapes. You can also write a small note with the meals or include a fun game for your child to play with other children at lunch, such as tic tac toe.
Keep Foods Healthy
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Children's lunches are often unhealthy and full of sugar, fat and salt. Keeping your child's lunch healthy will increase his brain function and provide fuel to keep him going all day. Include foods such as small fruits and vegetables, healthy, whole grain breads, non-sugared drinks, low-fat proteins and fiber-rich foods. These items will help keep your child healthy throughout life. If your child is unused to healthy meals, add in one healthy item every few weeks to slowly transition to healthy meals.
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References
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