Lunchbox Lessons
Use these tips and your kids will be running to grab their lunch bags when the noontime school bell rings
By Debby Waldman
Feeling bad because the sandwich you so lovingly made for your son last week came home untouched in his lunch bag, along with the carrot sticks you’d chopped with a special serrated cutter so they’d look like the ones served at an elegant party?
Get over it. When it comes to school lunches, even certified dietitians are challenged to pack something their kids will consume.
Consider the case of Lee Finell, nutrition educator with Alberta Milk, who assumed that because her nine-year-old son loves making tacos for dinner, he’d be thrilled to do the same during his school lunch break.
“I thought I was being so clever - I packed grated cheese, chopped peppers, salsa, a whole wheat tortilla and some cold hamburger made with taco seasoning,” she recalls. “It all came back except for one bite out of his taco.”
Had her son suddenly developed a dislike of tacos? Not likely. He was just in a hurry to get outside and play soccer with his pals. Which led Finell to the following conclusion, one that it would behoove every lunch-making parent to heed: “Food is not the most important thing at lunch at school. Eating is not the most important thing. Playing and socializing are.”
With that in mind, here are some golden rules of school lunches. They may help spare you and your children the trauma of uneaten meals.
“I like to put in things that are nutritious, but that taste good and are kid friendly,” says Barb Lockert, owner of the Bosch Kitchen Centre in Edmonton and mother of two children, now 16 and 21. Lockert says that carrot and celery sticks hold up well, as do pea pods, apples, oranges, grapefruit and trail mixes, whether homemade or store-bought. However, when it comes to trail mix, be sure that the ingredients are allowed into the lunchroom; many schools now ban nuts of any kind.
Fancify your sandwiches
Lockert’s children weren’t fans of leftover sliced roast beef, but they sure liked it when she chopped it in the food processor with relish, salad dressing or mustard and made it into a sandwich spread. And she liked having control over the quality, not to mention that using leftovers is economical. Maybe you can’t do as Lockert does and make your own whole grain breads, but as Edmonton food guru Gail Hall of Seasoned Solutions points out, “The variety of multi-grain breads available now is phenomenal. They’ve got great flavour.”
If your child doesn’t like traditional sandwiches, roll a filling in a flour tortilla and serve it in a cigar shape or sliced in pinwheels. Use mini pitas or bagels, flat breads or buns. As for fillings, both Hall and Lockert recommend a variety. Try thinly sliced fresh deli meats or your own roast beef or leftover poultry, add some sliced cheese, cucumbers, and lettuce; or, try tuna and salmon salad sandwiches with celery, chopped green onion and mayonnaise.
Buy a wide-mouth thermos
Fill it with chili, homemade soup or chicken and rice left over from last night’s dinner. To ensure that the food is still hot at lunch time, heat the thermos with hot water first and then fill it with food that has been heated to as high a temperature as possible. Some schools do have microwave ovens available for children, but there is often a lineup. It’s crucial to make sure that the food and thermos are as hot as possible so lunch will stay warm until your child is ready to eat it. Lukewarm food isn’t as tasty, more importantly it is at risk of growing potentially harmful bacteria.
Serve cold food cold
There are lunch bags on the market that come with cold packs, but you can make your own by freezing juice boxes or tetra packs. Even as it thaws, the drink will keep the rest of the lunch cold.
Make it easy
Kids are more likely to eat oranges if the fruit is cut into sections or if the skin has already been peeled (although some fruits, like apples, will turn brown once exposed to the air).
“Cut things up so there’s something they can grab and eat rather than having to do any level of preparation,” Finell says. Keep a stash of cut-up vegetables in the refrigerator so that your child can help assemble lunch from readily available supplies. Dried fruit is easy to pack and eat, and you can make your own if you have a dehydrator. They’re available at the Bosch Kitchen Centre for as little as $90. “If you grow your own apples, you can dry them, and it will pay for itself in one season,” Lockert says.
Make and freeze individually sized meals
Hall recommends quiche and lasagna, which freeze well and are nutritious and filling. They’re ideal for situations where children have ready access to microwave ovens. Just don’t forget the flatware.
Offer a deli buffet
Hall suggests packing a divided container with cheese, meat, vegetables and a condiment or two. Include a tortilla, bun, pita or bagel and your child has variety and the opportunity to be creative. Not all children are averse to assembling their own lunches. Older students will often welcome a salad. While they might not eat everything you pack, having a variety of small containers of food also makes snacking easier, and can provide energy throughout the day.
Don’ be (too) afraid of sweets
Give your child something sweet - a cookie or granola bar. “Just keep it small,” Hall advises.
Involve your children
A Grade 1 student might not be able to chop vegetables, but she can help shop for them. “If you can get kids involved in grocery shopping and preparing as much as possible when they’re little, they have more ownership and feel more involved,” says Cheryl Ryan, a nutrition specialist with the Calgary Health Region.
Hall agrees. “If you’re involved in preparing it, you want to eat it,” she says. And chances are, it won’t be swapped for a classmate’s microwaveable noodles in a bowl.
A healthy lunch combines all four food groups, with limited amounts of sugar, salt and fat. Step away from sliced meats. (Some luncheon meats are quite high in salt and fat. If you do buy prepackaged meats, Canada’s Food Guide recommends choosing varieties that are lower in salt and fat.) For variety, try hard-boiled eggs, raw veggies with chickpea dip, yogurt, fortified soy products, a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, kefir and paneer.
Fruits, vegetables and hard cheeses can last without refrigeration for a few hours. With many products, including milk, dips, meat or eggs, you’ll need an ice pack.
“Dairy products taste best cold, so if you want your children to eat the yogurt or drink the milk, ensure that they get it when it’s still cold,” says Finell.
Finell says a good way to get dairy products into younger children at lunch is in a yogurt tube. “They’re in a fun format, you can freeze them, and you don’t need a spoon.”
Flavoured milks - chocolate, strawberry or banana - are also popular, and they have the same nutrients as regular milk with roughly the same amount of sugar as unsweetened apple juice. “Milk is a very nutrient-dense food,” Finell says. “Growing children use it for energy.”
Small packages of fresh cheese such as Minigos (a commercially prepared mix of yogurt, cream cheese and fruit) and single servings of cottage cheese packaged with fruit are great options. If you have time, you can prepare single servings yourself at home, a more cost effective method that will also let you control the sugar content of your child’s lunch.
Still on the homemade front, some parents send their children to school with fruit smoothies packed in a thermos; try including tofu for additional protein. Hard cheeses, such as cheddar and Swiss, contain more calcium than soft cheeses, and are usually served sliced or in cubes. Pack with whole wheat crackers or a whole-grain pita. Finell finds that grated cheese is popular because kids like to sprinkle it on things.
Finell calls hard cheeses ‘natural toothbrushes.’ That’s especially helpful if your children don’t bring toothbrushes to school, and they eat dried fruit, which contains more concentrated amounts of sugar than fresh fruit.
Soups packed in a hot thermos are a good way to add variety and more food groups in your child’s diet. And variety is crucial in school lunches. “You can find something to suit anyone’s appetite,” Finell says.
Lunch online
Check out some websites to find some great school lunch ideas:
