Lovely lunchboxes

By Lucy Summers | Posted: Thursday January 19, 2017

Back to school means back to preparing school lunches everyday. Try to get your kids involved in helping to make their lunch and talk about healthy options to include.

Healthy ideas:

• Aim for wholegrain bread and alternate sandwiches with wraps, rice crackers or unsalted tortilla chips
  
• Chopped carrot, celery sticks, sugar snaps peas and cherry tomatoes travel well in lunchboxes
  
• Include a small tub of peanut butter, pesto or hummus for dipping vegetables
  
• Make a mini fruit salad and add lemon juice to stop it going brown throughout the day
• Include a tub of dried fruit, nuts and seeds
  
• Include last night’s leftover macaroni cheese or stir-fry rice and vegetables with a fork
• Bought cheese triangles or cheese cut into cubes
  
• Sushi rolls
  
• Plain popcorn
  
• A pottle of yoghurt
  
• Encourage your kids to drink water or milk.
  

Try to avoid:

• Chips, lollies and chocolate bars that will result in energy slumps and poor concentration
  
• Sugar-sweetened beverages such as fruit juices, fruit drinks, cordials, sports drinks, energy drinks, artificially sweetened or flavoured waters, iced teas and soft drinks. These are high in energy (kilojoules) and sugar, and can lead to weight gain and oral health problems in children
  
• Packaged snacks: cheese and dip snack packs, coated muesli bars, oven-baked savoury biscuits, muffins, rice crackers, crisps and biscuits are often high in salt or fat
  
• Processed meats such as salami, bacon, pastrami sausages are highly processed and salty.