Lunch Box Do’s and Dont’s
Tips for making healthy lunches that kids love.
Ann Douglas

We’re just a few weeks into this year’s school lunch-making season – the perfect time to analyze your lunch-making game. Here are some parent-proven strategies for putting together healthy school lunches that travel well and that score big points with even the pickiest of eaters.

DO’S

• Find ways to involve your child in planning and preparing her lunches. She’s less likely to complain about a lunch that she helped to make herself.

• Realize that there’s more to life than sandwiches. There are plenty of other great things to pack in a lunch other than a piece of cheese jammed between two slices of bread. Baked beans, meatballs, cabbage rolls, and leftover pizza all make great lunchtime entrees.

• Keep a supply of cheap cutlery on hand for use with puddings, applesauce, and soups. You’ll be less concerned if an inexpensive spoon ends up in the trash at school than if it’s one of your good kitchen spoons that makes its way to the landfill site.

• Pay attention to how the lunch is packed. Make sure that canned fruit and other sticky substances are packed in leak-proof containers and that sandwiches are packed in such a way that they won’t be squished on the way to school.

• Remember to use a freezer pack if your child is carrying a lunch that contains perishable items. Another alternative is to toss in a frozen juice box; it’ll keep your child’s lunch cold until lunchtime, at which point she can drink it. To minimize waste, use a refillable plastic juice box rather than one of the pre-filled disposable types.

DON’TS

• Don’t forget to find out the school’s policy regarding peanut butter and other nut products. Some schools have chosen to ban these foods outright due to allergy concerns.

• Don’t fall into the trap of sending the same lunch everyday. Instead, come up with a list of five of your child’s favourite lunches so that you can send a different lunch to school with him each day of the week. (Note: Some children get hooked on a particular type of sandwich and wouldn’t dream of eating anything else. If this is the case with your child, then simply go with the flow. At some point, tuna will lose its charm. I promise!)

• Don’t overlook the importance of a snack. A sandwich and a drink aren’t enough for a growing child. Try to send along a snack that will pack a nutritional punch – something like fresh fruit, vegetable sticks with dip, cheese and crackers, or yogurt.

• Don’t give your child grief for not finishing his entire lunch. Instead, encourage him to bring home any leftovers so that you can keep tabs on what he is – and isn’t – eating. If you make an issue about the uneaten portions of the lunch, your child will simply learn to give the uneaten portions of his lunch away to someone else or to toss it in the trash. Or, worse, he’ll start to disregard that voice inside him that tells him when he’s had enough to eat – hardly the lesson you want him to learn.

Ann Douglas is the author of The Mother of All® Parenting Books and numerous other books about pregnancy and parenting. She is currently writing Mealtimes Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach™ for Each Age and Stage (The Mother of All Solutions™), which will be published by Wiley in both Canada and the U.S. next spring.