Food Friday: Rehashing the School Lunch

As a part of back to school week, I am raising the issue of school lunches. The issue of healthy school lunches for kids bears an uncanny resemblance to the issue of healthy lunches for homemakers or working moms. Coincidence ? I think not. 

Yes, parents, you have the power. Yes, you must lead by example. Yes, accomplishing your health goals for yourself and the family hinges on how you shop for food, how you prepare it, and how you manage to eat in a regular civilized fashion, bum on chair, at the table. It also depends on your foresight to cook and prepare extra for lunches the next day. Granted, it depends on many other things, but none of them are difficult or expensive. For example, you must have proper lunch boxes, probably bigger than you think. Because if you and your kids are eating properly, your lunchbox is not going to contain a compact little lunch-able in plastic. It instead will contain fresh perishable food like salad which takes up space and fresh whole fruit which can get bruised. 

In short, producing proper school lunches is a marker for proper parenting and a competent lifestyle. Here are the rules : study up on your subject, in this case, nutrition. ( see HERE) Be reasonable and get interested stake holders involved ( the kids, and your partner). Prepare in advance, and keep to a schedule. This is how you do health. You do one healthy thing, over and over and over until it is an automatic regular routine. 

If you live this way, your kids will grow up comfortable with a calm organized lifestyle. If you are constantly a hot mess, late, disorganized and throw Smuckers Jam and Jiffy peanut butter at them every morning, they may struggle will obesity, and worse, they may struggle with respect for you when they are older. They will love you, but children see all. If your kids live in a calm well run home, they will grow up to prefer that. They will adopt the same lifestyle themselves. 

So yes, you will need to think about protein, fruits, veggies, food safety, taste, appearance, and packaging. You will need to worry about lunch table bullies and the trading of your good food for someone else Twinkies. And it doesn’t stop after grade school. Nor does it stop after high school. Kids in college may have the advantage of healthy dorm food. But oftentimes they do not, and between that and their newfound freedom, the freshman 30 becomes all too real.

Young gentlemen living off campus pose a particular challenge since they are not commonly taught the domestic arts, i.e., they can scarcely boil water. And as I have seen one son through graduate school, and another partway through undergrad, I am determined to make a guide called College Cuisine. You will be the first to hear of it. Meanwhile, I have to be content to pass on some value from others. Here are some awesome resources to help you with the challenge of school lunches: 

My Post:  the Joy Lunch Club

http://drginanelson.com/drginablogs/2015/5/22/food-friday-the-joy-lunch-club?rq=lunch%20box

My Post:  Healthy School Lunches

http://drginanelson.com/drginablogs/2015/9/17/food-friday-healthy-school-lunches?rq=school%20lunch

New York Times:  Why Kids Hate School Lunches

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/sunday-review/why-students-hate-school-lunches.html?_r=0

Washington Post On Japan’s School Lunch Menu

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/on-japans-school-lunch-menu-a-healthy-meal-made-from-scratch/2013/01/26/5f31d208-63a2-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html

Huffington Post:  Photos from School Lunches From Around the World Will Make American Kids Want to Study Abroad

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/school-lunches-around-the-world_n_6746164.html

Blog of Stanford visiting scholar Karen LeBillion, author of "French Kids Eat Everything", and "Getting to Yum" 

https://karenlebillon.com

Finally, one of my favorites, NomNomPaleo.com Lunch Box Menus

http://nomnompaleo.com/paleolunchboxes

Enjoy lunch and enjoy the school year ! 

Food Friday: Healthy School Lunches

Think this is going to be a bunch of recipes ? Think again. Here is what it really takes to have your kids' school lunches be healthy. It's not what you think, and it takes a lot more than a recipe. 

A healthy school lunch that is well received by your grade school child is one of the crowning achievements of parenthood. To engineer this amazing feat, you must be ambitious, disciplined, creative and start very early in the game, like before you are even pregnant with the child. Seriously ?

Most depends on you, and this is both bad and good news. It means the obligation is upon you, but it also means you have the power. While you will see that I am emphasizing a strategy that works best if you start early in a child's life, these strategies can work on older children, teens, and in principle, even husbands !

You must lay the appropriate groundwork in your home. Your parenting should have that " just right" touch which is not too lax and not too firm. Your home should run smoothly, so that kids feel secure. Then you must learn what healthy food is, and learn to prepare it so it is easy to handle and appealing to eat. Then you start thinking about healthy school lunches. Here are your tips: 

• Start very early on healthy eating habits for the whole family. 
• Make sure you know about nutrition, and not just what marketers say. 
• Lead by example, i.e. shop, cook and eat healthy yourself. 
• Make superb healthy food a family hobby. .  
•  Know your kids friends.
• Foster this philosophy among your kids' friends by having them over to do cooking projects. Get them involved in the tradition of really nice healthy food. 
• Know about school food situation. (Is there a hot lunch ?) 
• Know about school policy ( Is food trading permitted ? ) 
• Know the school social scene (Are there bullies ? ) 
• Be aware of social sensitivity surrounding home packed lunch. ( Is it cool ? Uncool ? ) 
• Involve children in the school lunch making process. 
• Look up healthy school lunches online together. 
• Make a shared Pinterest album of school lunch ideas. 
• Choose and purchase their lunch containers together. Let the child have a much say as possible.
• Observe Food safety when packing lunches. Consider a reusable ice block. 
• Get kids involved the night before in composing and packing their lunch, at the same time you make yours ! 
• Don’t be a purist. Include some healthier treats like dark chocolate or covered almonds ! 
• Consider the classic note of encouragement. Consider variations such as riddles or anagrams. 
• Enjoy the process !