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14 Healthy Lunches
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15
The Perfect Packed Lunch
by Laura Hyde
The start of a new year inspires us all to eat healthy,
but healthy eating shouldn’t be a novelty, it should be
a lifestyle choice, something you commit to, for your
health as well as the health of your children. If figures
from the school measuring programme (released in
late-2011) are to be believed, a staggering one in
five children (18.7%) leave primary school obese; this
figure rises dramatically, to 33.4%, when overweight
11-year-olds are taken into account.
So, what can you do to reduce the chances of your child becoming
another obesity statistic - well, you could start by taking a look at their
packed lunch. According to The School Food Trust, parents are failing
to put enough fruit and veg into their children’s packed lunches. The
Trust looked at 3,500 packed lunches in England in 2009 and discovered
that about 40% of lunchboxes do not contain any fruit or vegetables,
compared with just 10% of school dinners.
Packed lunches are currently typically higher in saturated fat, sugar and
salt, and often contain foods that can’t be provided by schools in their
school lunches, such as sweets and salted snacks. Ensuring parents make
healthy packed lunches that give children the variety they need in their
diet, takes a lot of time and effort, but time and effort that’ll be rewarded,
for both parent and child. Reflect understand that it’s not financially
practical to follow the Trust’s advice to switch to school meals, but how
do you ensure your child is getting the best packed lunch possible.
The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has set up an online game
website to give parents advice on healthier lunchboxes -
www.greatgrubclub.com/my-packed-lunch helps you design and plan
nutritious, tasty and interesting lunchboxes thanks to the interactive
meal planner.
The WCRF credit celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, with transforming school
meals and feel the same sort of changes are now needed for children
who bring lunch from home; the nutritional content of school canteen
meals has improved drastically so now attention is turning to the
healthiness of the content of lunchboxes, which the WCRF feel has been
left behind. Their online game not only gives parents and children ideas
for foods that are both healthy and tasty, but also encourages parents
to ensure lunchboxes include at least two portions of fruit and veg. The
WCRF don’t want to tell parents what to do and what not to feed their
children, but they hope their online game will advise parents about the
different healthy options that are available, cheap and easy to prepare.
Healthy Lunch Options
It’s all too easy to give your child the same lunch each and every day, but
by keeping lunches varied, you’re less likely to get bored…
Sandwich Fillings
• Chicken with a low-fat dressing and salad
• Grated cheese and pickle
• Bacon, lettuce and tomato
• Tuna and tomato
• Salmon and cucumber
• Hummus and red pepper
• You could try any of
these in a pitta, on a
tortilla, in a chapattis
or crusty rolls or even
on a bagel if you or
your children start to
grow bored of bread
– just make sure it’s
wholemeal.
Alternatives
• Soup with wholegrain bread – easy to make recipes include butternut
squash and red pepper, vegetable and mushroom soup
• Cous cous with roasted vegetables and chickpeas
• Wholegrain pasta salad with tomatoes, green beans and sweetcorn in
green pesto sauce
• Rice salad with turkey
• Low-fat cream cheese on wholegrain cracker with grapes
• Pizza fingers x3
• Spanish Omelette
• Crustless vegetable quiche
Snacks
• Carrot and cucumber sticks
• Cherry tomatoes
• Dried fruits
• Fresh fruit
• Cheese cubes
• Pot of yoghurt
• Hard-boiled egg
• Nuts or seeds (unsalted)
• Slice of fruit loaf or malt loaf
• Seeded flapjack
• Chocolate bran flake slice
• Low-fat rice pudding pot
• Uniced fruit cake
• Strawberry trifle
Drinks
• Semi-skimmed milk
• Water
• Pure apple/orange juice
(limit to once a week due to
sugar content)
• Blackberry smoothie
You can get more healthy
and tasty lunch ideas online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/
treatments/healthy_living/
nutrition/life_children.shtml
• If you struggle to get your kids to eat fruit and veg, why not try:
• Chopping fruit into bite-sized chunks and thread onto skewers to
create colourful and tempting kebab
• Adding red kidney beans or chickpeas to Bolognese, chilli or curries
• Combining fresh fruit and jelly
• Incorporating vegetables diced or sliced (such as pepper and carrots)
to pizzas and wraps
• Adding carrots, parsnips, peas or spring onions to mashed potato
• Using pureed or stewed fruit as a
topping for desserts or swirl into
low-fat plain yogurt
• Adding raisins, dried apricots or
other dried fruit to rice or cous cous
to make interesting and delicious
meals
For more information on The School
Food Trust and how you can create
the perfect packed lunch for your
child, please visit
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk
It’s not just children who will benefit from healthy packed lunches;
parents can also reap the health benefits of making their own packed
lunch and taking it into work. As well as the health benefits, there are
staggering financial gains too. If you spend £5 a day on lunch, that adds
up to £25 a month, which in turn can add up to £1,200 a year – that’s a
staggering amount to spend on food that’s not too healthy for you. By
making your own lunch every day for the next year and saving the £5 you’d
usually spend, you can enjoy flaunting your new healthy and toned body
on a luxury holiday!
Did You Know?
• In 2008, only 19% of children
got five or more portions of fruit
each day.
• Frozen and tinned (in juice not
syrup) count towards your five
fruit and veg a day.
• Strawberries are very high
in vitamin C, potassium, and
antioxidants.
• Obesity currently costs the
country around £2 billion
annually.
• 35% of an adult’s daily
requirement of vitamin C can be
found in a medium-sized potato,
but 100% can be found in a
medium-sized kiwi fruit.
• Last year, a study from the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth revealed
that one in ten parents expressed some concern about their child being
underweight when they were actually a normal, healthy weight; and 33%
of mums and 57% of dads considered their child’s weight to be ‘about right’
when, in fact, they were obese.
• Tomatoes are a good source of vitamins A and C.
• There is more fibre in an orange than in most other fruits and veggies.