LUNCH, LADY!
NUTRITIONIST KELLY SCOTTI COOKS UP BETTER WAYS TO BROWN BAG IT
Making lunch day in and day out for your little ones is probably not one of your favorite chores. Whether the cafeteria
is a daycare, a school house or your house, chew on these tips for creating flavorful and nutritious lunches.
Get the Supplies
First of all, make sure you have the proper supplies on hand: reusable containers, a short thermos for soups, small
freezer and hot packs, a bib, napkin, utensils, an insulated lunch bag, and sippy cups (or age appropriate beverage
containers).
Make Choices
Here comes the fun part: choosing ingredients. Engage your child in this good-habit-forming process. Let him or her help with the shopping and menu planning. Children that have a say in the selection and the buying process tend to eat what they have chosen. Make sure to offer a variety of flavors, colors, and textures from which they can pick, as well as a good balance of moist and dry ingredients. Include something salty, something sweet and maybe something sour. Try to have at least one crispy item and one chewy item. Include some good fats regularly, as children aged one through six need 30-35% fat in their diet. Most importantly, include a variety of organic fruits and vegetables for a nutritional punch. Even picky kids tend to eat their veggies if they are included in lunch every day.
Control Portions
When preparing the lunch, make sure that size of the food is age appropriate, as you don’t want your little one to choke. The portion size is also very important. Children from one through five definitely have different caloric needs (think less) than us adults. For children from one to two years of age, the average calories needs are 850 calories a day (range 550-1100). That goes up to 1050 for two to three year olds (range 700-1400), and 1250 for three to five years (range 850-1600). Many children are given two to three times the calories they need in a day; no wonder one in three children above the age of two in the US is considered overweight or obese.
Pack-n-Play
Don’t be afraid to let your child make his own lunch (with your help) if he is older than two. Lay out healthy fruit, vegetable, protein and fat sources and let him pick and choose. If he only picks one thing, don’t fret, simply put your choices in his lunch anyway, and know that when its lunchtime, he will have plenty of ways to get the nutrients he needs. To keep his interest, perhaps introduce a new fruit or vegetable each week to his lunch, or a salad that he helped prepare by throwing pre-chopped veggies in—the more colors, the better. If you don't use organic produce, make sure to wash the fruits and veggies in cold, drinkable water (if their outsides are hard, scrub well with a vegetable brush) before giving it to your child. You don’t want to add pesticides as a side dish with lunch.
Treat 'Em
For snacks, add even more fruits and veggies. If you have to choose packaged foods, go with choices like whole grain, fruit-juice sweetened cookies, air popped popcorn, organic chips and applesauce. Make sure to read the labels, and avoid ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, natural flavors, aspartame, sucralose, and anything that is partially hydrogenated.
Quench Their Thirst
Finally, don’t forget the water. Children need water to stay hydrated, and for peak functioning. Don’t worry that your child might be bored with water. If you regularly give them water instead of juice, they will actually start to crave it—and avoid all of the excess calories of juice.
Mom to Mom: Three Tips for Our Trade
| 1. | I pack everything in one little container for my son since he doesn’t seem to mind that the food is combined, but that might not be the case for your little one. If your child is not eating his lunch, be sure to assess the way you are packing the food, in addition to the food that you are packing. |
| 2. | One of my biggest roadblocks to packing a good lunch is not having good food on hand to pack. So whenever I go grocery shopping, I make sure to buy extra portions of staple foods such as whole grain bread, cheese, chicken and fish. I freeze them for times when I can’t make it to the grocery store. |
| 3. | To minimize cost and packaging waste, I pack whole foods in my son’s lunch whenever possible, and I avoid foods that are packaged in individual sizes and marketed for kids. Whole, unprocessed foods are best for their nutrient content, calorie content, and taste. They may take a little more time to prepare, but my son is worth it. Not only that, but those individual “kid-sized” packages with the accompanying cartoon characters can cause our children to think that their food is different than ours, and indelibly brand those foods in their minds. This can lead to food issues in the future, and tantrums now when we don’t buy their food. You might know what I mean if your child has ever had a SpongeBob SquarePants cereal meltdown in aisle 3. |
Try to be flexible and trust your child’s instincts about what he eats and how much he eats. It's definitely frustrating when the foods your child ate with gusto yesterday are refused today. This is, however, your child’s instinctual way to ensure he is getting the nutrients he needs—and besides, who wants the same lunch everyday?
To keep your child’s lunch fresh and varied, we’ve provided five lunch ideas in Table 1 and mix and match sandwich ideas in Table 2.
| Table 1 | |
| A Week of school lunches | |
| Mon | Banana Whole grain tortilla filled with hummus, cucumber, onion, lettuce (and maybe some eggplant) Cashews |
| Tue | Apple Chicken, avocado, and tomato sandwich |
| Wed | Pineapple Cottage cheese Celery Almond slices |
| Thu | Tomato soup with veggies Water crackers (no hydrogenated oils, just good fat, wheat flour and a little salt) Orange slices |
| Fri | Wrap or not: Salmon and asparagus (think: leftovers from dinner last night) Organic applesauce |
| Table 2 | |
| Sandwich Ideas: Mix and Match | |
| To hold it all together: Biscuits Hoagie rolls Pita bread Whole wheat hamburger buns Whole wheat tortillas Whole grain/multigrain bread |
Veggies: Avocado (actually a fruit) Banana peppers Grated cabbage Cucumber Steamed kale or collard greens Grated carrot Hot peppers (if your child likes it hot!) Mixed greens Mushrooms Olives Onions Pickle slices Romaine lettuce Sliced bell peppers Sliced tomato Spinach |
| Protein: Broiled salmon Chicken tenders (free range, organic) Chili (thick) Cooked black beans Cooked cannelloni (white beans) beans Falafel Ground turkey/beef Mashed or refried pinto beans Ham Nitrate and nitrite free lunch meats Tempeh Tofu Tuna Sliced cheese Sliced hard boiled eggs Sliced chicken breast (free range is best) Sliced turkey |
Spreads: Miso Peanut butter Almond or cashew butter Ghee Tahini Salsa Hummus Olive tapenade Mayonnaise (not as healthy) Cream cheese |
| Condiments: Balsamic vinegar Chipotle sauce Extra virgin olive oil Garlic Grated cheese Hot sauce Ketchup Mustard Oregano Pickle relish Red wine vinegar Salt and pepper |
Other fun stuff: What can you come up with? |
—Kelly Scotti
Kelly Scotti, HHC, is the Founder and Director of Flying Dragon Wellness, www.flyingdragonwellness.com,a nutrition and wellness counseling practice in Bucks County, Pa. She's Board Certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, and obtained her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC. She and her husband also run an online baby boutique for boys, www.ohboybabyboutique.com.
