Easy and fun foods your kids won’t swap.

August 27, 2008 on 4:29 pm | In Health & Nutrition, Lunch Time Savers | No Comments

Originally uploaded by Patrick Q

Give kids the energy they need to make it through the day with a healthy lunch. Studies have shown that if you equip your children with healthy food to eat at school, they will be better prepared to study and learn. Although there are lots of convenience products available to make packing your kid’s lunchbox a snap, those products are often loaded with saturated fat, calories and sodium. The kid-friendly lunch ideas in our collection take little time to prepare and will help keep lunches enjoyable and healthy. Fruits and vegetables add color and crunch while providing beneficial vitamins and minerals. Foods like wraps, smoothies and dips are fun to eat. Give your kids something to look forward to at lunch every day with a variety of options they won’t trade away!

Get the family involved. Allow your kids to participate in the grocery shopping and encourage them to choose healthy snacks. This will increase the likelihood that they will eat these snacks instead of less healthy ones.

Delight kids with dips. Diving vegetables and fruits into yummy dips makes lunch more fun. Offer apple slices with a half cup of low-fat vanilla yogurt; serve carrot sticks with a side of hummus. Use the GO GO Fruit/Veggie by Range Kleen – this leak proof container holds the dip in the center of the container with the fruit or veggies in the outer part of the container.

Kick up the calcium. There are creative tactics you can employ to make sure your child is getting plenty of calcium. Add low-fat cheese to meals and snacks: put Cheddar in an omelet; add a slice of cheese to sandwiches; create mini pizzas by topping whole-wheat English muffins with pizza sauce and part-skim mozzarella; make grilled cheese sandwiches appealing by using cookie cutters to create fun shapes.

Drink juice judiciously. “Fruit drinks” are not the same as “fruit juice.” Usually, fruit drinks are sugary solutions fortified with vitamins. Fruit juice does contain natural sugars but it also provides other good stuff (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants) from the fruit. The one exception: fiber, which gets processed out. So don’t drink juice as your primary way to meet your 5 to 9 fruits and veggies each day. Whole fruits are more filling and take longer to eat, leaving you more satisfied. Opt for juice occasionally—and when you do, choose 100% fruit juices.

Fill up with fiber. Few kids crave a fiber-rich meal. But fiber is filling and when combined with drinking plenty of water, helps prevent constipation. A high-fiber food has 5 grams or more of fiber per serving and a “good” source of fiber is one that provides 2.5 to 4.9 grams per serving. Some fiber-friendly foods include cooked navy beans (9.6 grams of fiber for cup), a medium baked sweet potato with skin (3.8 grams) and bran flakes (5.3 grams).