Alot of mum’s ask me about how they can get their children to eat different foods in their lunch box without filling it with loads of packages (that are laden with J.U.N.K)!
Given it’s such a common question, I thought I should blog about it.
As a general rule, you have to make the lunch box FUN!
Here’s 5 ways you can make your lunch boxes fun!
1. Colour
Make it colourful and interesting to look at by including different colours of foods together. For instance, add carrot sticks with edamane – the orange and green look great together. Or Strawberries with blueberries.
2. Variety
Change it up a bit and make today’s lunch box different to yesterdays.
3. Presentation
Cut foods in different shapes, skewer them, present them differently. Think of ways to make it look fun. This doesn’t have to involve loads of time. It could be as simple as cutting cheese in cubes, carrot sticks, and cucumber rounds.
4. Bento Style
Having a single lunch box that incorporates lunch and recess can greatly help with making a lunch box more fun. It also gives your child more flexibility and ownership because they can eat what they want for lunch and recess – they can pick bits of each type of food you’ve added, rather than this is for recess, this is for lunch.
5. Surprise
Add a little love note as a surprise. I love when my daughter or son say “thanks for my note today mum”. I have even included notes for my daughters friends because they have said they don’t get notes. They love it too.
So there you have it – 5 ways to make your lunch boxes more fun.
Even if your children are use to eating packets and aren’t into eating as much fruit and vegetables as mine (it took me 14 months to transition them from packets to this), follow the same principals but choose your packets carefully. Read the ingredients label. Choose a packet which has the best ingredients. And don’t just rely on the marketing hype on the front of the packet. Now – there’s another post for me to write – how to understand labels. I’ll add that to my list- look out for it soon.
