Are you a mom who has to pack lunchboxes and make snacks for your children every day of the week? And are you at your wits’ end trying to strike a balance between healthy food options and your child’s picky eating habits?

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Here are some ideas to make your life easier and to ensure that your children have good, wholesome food to take to school and to have in-between meals.

The basics
There are certain basic principles that you need to keep in mind:

• It takes planning - you need to plan ahead so that you buy the correct foods for making snacks and lunchboxes
• Resist the "easy" option to buy cold drinks, crisps and chocolate bars - in the long run this is going to ruin your children’s health
• Resist your children's demands and manipulations for high-fat snacks and fizzy cold drinks
• Remember that children are different to adults - they have a much smaller stomach capacity, so they need regular snacks and some children have a much higher energy requirement because they're more active than adults
• Remember that children are similar to adults - they also like interesting and tasty food that looks good enough to eat, but they may not appreciate very sophisticated foods
• Lunchboxes may have to replace three to four meals a day - that breakfast that wasn't eaten, the mid-morning snack, lunch and the mid-afternoon snack - a whole menu in one box!
• Packaging is important - buy a sturdy plastic container that's big enough to accommodate the food you want your child to take to school without getting squashed, and consider buying a small non-breakable vacuum flask or vacutainer for keeping cold foods and drinks cold, and hot foods and drinks hot
• Eating a variety of foods gives children and adults the best chance of obtaining a balanced diet
• Select foods from all the food groups every day:
  • Milk and dairy products;
  • Fruit and vegetables;
  • Breads and starches;
  • Protein foods like meat, fish, eggs and legumes; and
  • Fats and oils, including nuts.

Children need healthy foods and drinks to snack on or to take to school. Here are some suggestions:

a) Food

Cereals, breads and starches

• Low-GI, wholewheat, brown or rye bread or buns, various healthy breads, crisp bread (rye or wheat), wholewheat biscuits
• Pita bread, or hot dog/hamburger rolls, or pancakes/flapjacks, or mini pizzas, or bagels (buy the wholewheat varieties if possible)
• Wholewheat muffins or muffins made with fresh fruit like banana, dried fruit like raisins/sultanas/dates, or nuts; cheese muffins
• Oat cakes or oat crunchies, health or energy bars (only for children who are very active and who don't have a weight problem as these foods are quite high in fat)
• Granola cereal or unbuttered popcorn
• Muesli or bran rusks
• Rice cakes (buy various flavours)
• Baked potato with a filling (keep warm in vacutainer)
• Potato salad (use lite salad dressing or dilute mayonnaise with fat-free yoghurt)
• Cooked corn on the cob or mielie bread

Protein foods

• Lean cold cuts (ham, beef, chicken, tongue)
• Grilled chicken pieces (wings or drumsticks)
• Cooked, chopped or minced meat or chicken/turkey
• Cooked or canned sausages (only for thin and very active children as sausages contain quite a lot of fat)
• Homemade hamburger patties (use lean mince)
• Boiled eggs
• Cooked, flaked fish
• Canned fish such as tuna, pilchards or sardines
• Smoked fish like snoek or mackerel
• Biltong (cut off the fat or choose ostrich or game biltong)
• Meat or fish spreads and paste
• Cooked, minced legumes, baked beans or tofu

Milk and dairy foods

• Yoghurt (plain mixed with honey and nuts or fresh fruit, or read-made, flavoured, low-fat varieties)
• Cottage cheese (flavour plain cottage cheese with tomato sauce or piccalilli, mashed banana or avocado, nuts or dried fruit, or buy ready-made flavoured cottage cheese - check the fat content and buy the fat-free versions)
• Cheeses (all types, use grated or cut into cubes)
• Cheese spread

Fruit and vegetables

• Fresh fruit - apples, pears, naartjies, oranges, plums, peaches, grapes, litchis, mango, pineapple or melon pieces, figs
• Dried fruit and fruit rolls, mebos, dates or fruit dainties
• Carrot or celery sticks, baby tomatoes, cucumber wedges, lettuce
• Vegetable muffins (grated carrots and baby marrows can be added to a basic muffin mix)
• Pumpkin fritters
• Potato cakes

Fats and oils

• Mono- or polyunsaturated margarine or lite margarine as a spread on breads, etc
• Nuts, peanut butter
• Nutella spread
• Crisp bacon (crumble and add to fat-free cottage cheese)
• Avocado - mash and use instead of margarine
• Low-fat or lite salad dressing, or mayonnaise diluted with low-fat yoghurt

Flavourings
(Add taste, colour and variety to lunchboxes and snacks)

• Chutney - try different varieties
• Tomato sauce - the best source of lycopene, an antioxidant that protects against cancer
• Piccalilli, or mild mustard or pickles
• Gherkins
• Olives
• Vinegar (add to mashed sardines for extra flavour)
• Lemon juice (add to mashed banana to prevent discolouration)

b) Drinks and liquid foods

• Milk, plain or flavoured
• Homemade milk shakes (puree fruit with low-fat milk, add honey and/or vanilla flavouring)
• Yogi-sip
• Milk/fruit-juice blends
• Fruit juice, still or sparkling
• Soda water - flavoured, still or sparkling
• Energy drinks for children who participate in sport or who are very active
• Hot chocolate or cocoa made with skim milk (keep warm in vacutainer during winter)
• Soups (keep hot in vacutainer during winter)
• Cold water and ice for sports meetings

– (Dr I.V. van Heerden, DietDoc, updated December 2008)

Any questions? Ask DietDoc
 

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