One good reason for loving school holidays is the time off from packing school lunchboxes! No more thinking about sandwich alternatives, crunch and sip for the fussy fruit kid, or standing in the supermarket gazing at the piles of “healthy” snacks trying to figure what is actually nutritious for growing bodies. #thestruggleisreal
If we’ve described a day in your life, then #feedmefriday is for just for you. We’ve developed lots of ideas that we’ll post to instagram every Friday. Quick and easy options that will keep you sane and your kids happy and fuelled for the day.
As parents, we want to keep our kids healthy and create positive eating habits but just what is “healthy” can be pretty confusing. So all our tips aim to be simple and easy enough for most kids, kindy age (yes, kindy) and up and provide practical guidelines on just what is “healthy”. Lunchboxes should take only 2-5 minutes to pack. We focus on fresh food and mostly “packaging free” snacks but we’ll also cover different options as we know everyone has different schedules and packaged snacks are needed by some families.
So, onto this weeks tip!
Tip#1. Aim to include a bit from all five food groups (Fruit, Veg, Dairy and alternatives, Meat and alternatives, and Grains) If you’re missing more than
one of these on a regular basis, just pick one group and aim to consistently include that…and build from there. Think of this as a work in progress.. Same goes for any of our suggestions; if we provide several ideas that seem impossible at this stage (eg: multigrain options just won’t happen or we suggest three veggies at lunch and your small person will barely touch one and/or you just don’t get the time for three) don’t worry, just take one step at a time. This is not designed to be a guilt trip in perfect eating, more suggested guidelines of what is “on the right track”. This week we’re looking at an example of an entire lunchbox.
Today’s lunch box
Crunch and sip: 4-5 strawberries, rinse and pat dry, and then pop into crunch and sip container. This is a great one for kids to do while you work on lunch. Food group total:1. 
Recess: Depending on appetite – include 1 or 2 snacks. Aim to include dairy here where possible. Today we have a fruit english muffin. It can fresh or toasted, spread or no spread, one or both of the halves. They are a great source of fibre and filling for hungry tummies. Calciyum yoghurt is packed with calcium for young bones and the smaller serving sizes suits smaller tummies. (There are lots of other great yoghurts though, #staytuned, we’ll cover other options over the coming weeks. ) Food group total:1-2, grand total:2-3.
Lunch: The multigrain wrap contains a Chevup sausage, avocado an
d spinach leaves. Plus a corn cob, capsicum and cherry tomatoes. The Chevup sausages can be baked at the beginning of the week and then used each day, 1 per kid. Chevups are skinless, lean beef sausages and the perfect size for lunchboxes. Corn cobs can be microwaved in paper towel for 2-3 minutes to steam them and then sliced to smaller portions to last a few days. The capsicum and spinach are like bonus foods, if you don’t include them it’s no biggie, having 2 veg in a lunch box is adequate :). Avocado is a great source of good fats but if this isn’t a hit in your house then a normal spread (like margarine) is fine. Food group total:3. Grand total: 4-5.
Lastly, remember lunchboxes don’t have to be perfect 100% of the time, the main focus is establish a good baseline. For example, my kids may get a vegemite sandwich by the end of the week when everything has run out…but they’ll always have veg too (carrots are our saving grace!).
I hope you’ve found our first #feedmefriday post helpful. Have a great weekend and we look forward to providing more tips over the next few weeks.
Cheers
Simone