Alunchbox packedwith nutrients?
WE ALL want to ensure o u r o f f - spring eat healthily. School canteen meals a r e n o w rigorously planned to be as nutritious as possible but we cannot betheretomakesurethey choose well from what is on offer. So it is surely better to send them in with a packed lunch. Or is it?
Recent headlines screamed that a scarily low 1.6 per cent of primaryschool lunch boxes met the nutritional standards set for the school canteen fare. Which made me wonder just how well we home-caterers are doing. Packing a healthy lunch is not without its challenges, especially when nuts are banned and most Jewish schools require a milky rather than meaty meal.
A sample group of parents bravely agreed to allow nutritionist Laura Southern, herself a mother of primaryschool children, to review and mark the contents of their children’s lunch boxes and to provide advice on how to pack a healthy meal.
“When creating a lunch box, it’s usually easier to think in food groups, rather than items,” says Southern. “So have a check list of the food groups you need and build around that.
“Start with vegetables — children need to be exposed to as wide a variety of vegetables as possible — raw and cooked, or various textures and colours. Carrot and cucumber pieces are a good start but maybe add other raw
98 per cent of primary lunch boxes are inadequate’