Pack a Power Lunch

It’s February and your beginning-of-the-year exuberance about packing your child’s school lunch may be fizzling out—especially if you have a picky eater. 

If your child is a picky eater, enlist their help. Invite your child to pick one food from each of the four main food groups: fruits, vegetables, protein-rich foods and starchy or complex carbohydrate-rich foods. Add a “drink pick” and, for a special treat, a “fun pick.” Yes, lunch time should be fun time too.

Here are six simple ways to incorporate these “picks” into your child’s lunch sack:

Fruit Pick

Place a bowl full of fruit on your kitchen counter and let your child choose which one they’ll add to their lunch sack.

Vegetable Pick

Ask your child which veggies they like, or better yet have them choose some of their favorites while at the grocery store. Kids prefer veggies (and fruit) cut into smaller pieces because they look less intimidating. Consider packing colorful, bite-sized vegetables with a small container of hummus, ranch dressing, or other low-fat dip, and your child is sure to start munching more.

Protein-rich Pick

There are so many protein-rich food choices to choose from. Some of our favorites include tuna, peanut butter, string cheese, yogurt, and beans and lentils. Help your child find their favorites.

Carbohydrate-rich Pick

The sandwich (or at least the bread it contains) is probably the quintessential packed-lunch complex carbohydrate-rich pick. Be sure to choose 100% whole grain whenever possible. Other examples of complex carbohydrate-rich picks include pasta or even cereal, a tortilla wrap, or veggie or bean soup. 

Drink Pick

Milk can often be purchased at school, while a fruit spritzer can be made at home (three parts juice to one-part sparkling water) and toted to school in a thermos. Fruit drinks, however, are discouraged since they are nothing more than refined sugar.

Fun Pick

Lunch is so much sweeter when your child opens their lunch box to find a fun surprise. Consider adding a love note, poem, joke, riddle, drawing or brainteaser. Sports clips and comics are also a great addition to encourage reading in the younger-age group. 

Nutrition Nugget

Make things easy by planning ahead. Grocery shop, cut veggies and fruit, have a variety of luncheon meats and/or cheeses on hand, keep an extra loaf of bread in the freezer for emergencies, collect a stash of fun riddles and jokes from books or online sources. You get the idea. A little pre-planning will pay huge dividends (in the form of a healthy lunch that your child will eat), especially on those hectic mornings when you’re dashing to get out the door.

Here’s to healthy and happy lunches!

The EatingFor Team