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August 20, 2010
School life with vegetables
With a little inspiration, lunches needn’t be cause for anxiety.
MICHELLE DODEK
Children may dread the end of summer freedom with the return to school, but parents have an altogether different reason to feel ambivalent. Who can figure out what to pack for lunch and ensure it is healthy and nut free? If your child has food allergies or attends Jewish school, there are further constraints. Your choices must also be appealing enough to be eaten quickly during the brief lunchtime hour. And what if you’re concerned about all of the waste associated with a packed lunch or including food that isn’t considered “cool,” like a whole apple, versus foods that are “cool,” packaged and prepared and likely less healthy?
It’s enough to make any parent cringe. As a former teacher, I remember seeing a Grade 6 student with a can of Coke and a small package of Oreo cookies for a morning snack. For the most part, I intentionally ignored what my students were eating for lunch, but I found it distressing to see so many untouched, nutritious fruits and vegetables in the garbage can at the end of the day, along with trash from a huge range of pre-packaged lunch items I would hesitate to even call “food.”
Lunch could be used as an important tool for discussion toward developing lifelong healthy eating habits and the discussion needs to begin at home, where the decisions of what food gets brought into the home and, therefore, to school, are made.
Now, as a parent, I struggle with making palatable, healthy, quick-to-eat, litter-less lunches in keeping with my values and those I am trying to impart to my children. Sometimes it can feel like a losing battle – and my children are not picky eaters at all!
One of the best ways to be sure the time put into making the lunch will result in the food being eaten, rather than thrown away, is by involving the child in the organizing steps. This takes time, certainly, but there are many positive outcomes, and they outweigh the extra time spent in the organization phase.
Knowing what’s for lunch and having, themselves, chosen from the available options helps kids not only to “buy in” to their nutritional options, but also ingrains the practice of structuring a healthy lunch. By Grade 4, with practise, a child should be able to make a lunch while parents prepare their own food for the following day. But what to pack?
The Canada Food Guide recommends that children four to eight years of age have five fruit or vegetable servings each day. For instance, one serving would include the equivalent of one medium-sized piece of fruit. If you pack two daily snacks containing one fruit or vegetable each, lunch need only have another one or two and you’re way ahead of the recommendations. Only one meat or meat alternative is required daily, which takes the strain off for those packing non-meat lunches at Jewish schools. And, if you choose a whole grain pasta or bread for a sandwich, you are featuring, at the very least, one to two of the four grain servings required.
Now for some practical options for main courses, that, if accompanied by a few fruits and vegetables – and plenty of water to satisfy thirst – will be healthy, easy to make and, hopefully, eaten by even the pickiest of eaters.
Sandwich combinations:
• Bagel and cream cheese, add lox if desired
• Grilled cheese works cold
• Hummus with diced cucumber and tomato
• Veggie wrap, use a whole-wheat tortilla and add black bean hummus, shredded peppers, carrots and jicama, or make it Mexican and use instead refried beans, diced tomato, peppers and sweet salsa
• Pesto with cucumber, sprouts and shredded carrot
Some different vegetables to try:
• Jicama (cut to look like sticks)
• Fennel (tastes a little like licorice)
• Small Japanese cucumbers (no need to cut, peel or wrap)
• Snap peas
• Roasted beets (makes kids teeth turn pink, making these roots briefly fun for school)
Some other healthy choices
• Cheese slices
• Hard-boiled egg
• Noodles with pesto or tomato sauce, capers or olives and feta, or other cheeses or cheese substitute
• Couscous with chick peas
• Quinoa with cranberries and dried apricots (quinoa provides complete proteins and balanced amino acids)
• Salmon “candy” (available at fish stores and Costco)
• Sesame baked tofu (toss firm tofu cubes with sesame oil and seeds, olive oil, soy sauce and bake – it’s yummy cold)
• Puréed or noodle soups – try minestrone
Michelle Dodek has two kids in school and makes veggie-friendly lunches daily.
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