Schools back! If not already, children will be heading back to school within the next few weeks. I’m sure parents around the country and thinking about schools uniforms, books, stationary and school lunch boxes! What to pop into the box? The lunch box should contain nutritious, well balanced food to provide children with the energy to get through their day and the nutrients to help them learn, be active and grow. And the food to provide this will be different from child to child and family to family. So wasn’t I shocked to hear that some parents feel ‘guilty’ about putting packaged snacks in their child’s lunchboxes and other parents were putting themself on a pedestal proclaiming that their child only ever gets ‘homemade natural food’ in their lunchbox. It’s sad that the media and the health fads such as clean eating & sugar free have made parents feel this way. Whether its feeling guilty about not providing homemade snacks or people thinking they are superior for only providing homemade snacks it shouldn’t be happening! Let’s not put this pressure on parents! They have so much else going on and now they feel like they will get the title of ‘worst parent of the year’ for putting a packaged muesli bar in a lunchbox! Don’t get me wrong I always encourage minimally processed, fresh, nutritious food wherever possible. And I encourage you to always try and include some fresh food into your childs lunchbox whether it be some fruit, vegetables sticks, natural yoghurt or nuts (if they are allowed at the school) but having some packaged food is fine too! Believe it or not there are healthy, nutritious packaged foods out there that are perfectly fine to include in the lunchbox (and also a heap of nutritionally poor choices too – it’s about choosing the better options). Susie has provided a great list of packaged lunchbox snacks that are a great snack size, minimally processed and low in sugar. So whether some of these packaged snacks are staples in your child’s lunchbox or just used occasionally when you haven’t had a chance to whip up some homemade snacks in the kitchen both options are fine. At the end of the day you want to be providing your child with nutritious food that they will eat to fuel them throughout their day and this can be found in both healthy packaged and homemade snacks. susieburrell.au/school-snacks/
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:28:06 +0000
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