Pack A Lunch Your Child Won’t Want To Trade

Parents, don’t fret. When the first day of school is over, you’ll have only 179 school lunches to make until next summer.

Packing the lunch box is high on the parental list of “most mundane,” yet eating those lunches can be equally as mundane … peanut butter, again? When it comes to school lunches, kids want great taste and parents want nutritious meals their children will eat, says Mollie Katzen, author of the best-selling children’s cookbook “Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes.”

Katzen says, “It’s not as hard as it sounds to strike a compromise with your kids about what goes into the lunch box. There are lots of ways to make healthy eating fun.”

One solution, she says, is to pack several nutritious snack foods in your child’s lunch bag, rather than the usual sandwich, fruit, drink ensemble.

“Kids love to snack,” says Katzen. “They think it’s more fun to have a mini-bagel with some turkey and string cheese than to have a big sandwich. Snacks might not be traded or thrown away.”

Katzen gives these suggestions for making simple, enjoyable lunches for your child - lunches that might even get eaten:

Slice ‘em and dice ‘em. When it comes to getting kids to eat fruits and vegetables, make them as easy to eat as possible. Rather than packing a whole, unpeeled orange, peel and section it so the kids can pop the pieces into their mouths. Other easyto-eat fruits include grapes, raisins, sliced bananas and apples. Slide them onto toothpicks to make “fruit sticks.”

Mini-mize it. To make vegetables more appealing, choose child-sized options, like baby carrots or cherry tomatoes. Include your child’s favorite dip or dressing in a small container, since dipping veggies is a lot tastier and fun to eat. Instead of a big sandwich, try a mini-bagel, a small container of cheese and crackers, or peanut butter with bread sticks.

Think finger foods. Child-portioned, pre-packaged snacks appeal to kids because they are easy to grab, such as string cheese, pretzels, fruit roll, pudding cups or granola bars.

Solve the pyramid puzzle. Look for foods which satisfy your child’s taste for sweets, but fit into the lower levels of the Food Guide Pyramid, such as low-fat cookies, raisins, air-popped popcorn or graham crackers.

Shop together and pack ahead. Kids who pick the foods from the grocery store and pack their lunch themselves (the night before, if possible) begin to develop healthy eating habits and will tend to finish their lunch while enjoying it.

Free food poster

To help parents and kids learn about packing healthy lunches, the makers of Quaker Chewy Granola Bars offer an educational poster, “How to Pack and Snack the Pyramid.”

Perfect for refrigerators, the poster features word games, personalized shopping lists, tips for smart snacks and lunches, and a colorful USDA Food Pyramid.

To order the free poster, call (800) 476-2252.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: The Family Track is a weekly column of notes and information for families. Send items to Lynn Gibson, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615, or fax (509) 459-5098.