5 Steps to a Healthy Lunchbox  

You may pack a healthy lunch, but there’s no guarantee that your daughter or son will try to trade their apple slices for a cookie. Even before your kids are old enough to start cooking, you can help them take an active role in deciding what to eat for lunch each day by teaching them the importance of healthy eating habits. Here are 5 steps to get you started.

1. Be a Role Model – How can you expect your kids to eat healthy if you don’t do so yourself? Make sure that meals at home follow a balanced diet. You can also help them develop good eating habits, like keeping healthy snacks around the house like nuts and fruit instead of junk food. Also, it’s best not to reward good behavior with sweets and punish bad behavior by taking them away – sweets and desserts should be enjoyed in moderation, independent of behavior.

2. Get them Food Savvy – Rather than telling your kids what they can and can’t eat, educate them about the benefits of healthy food from a young age. This will help them to understand that eating healthy food isn’t a punishment, but something they can enjoy their whole lives. When they’re a little older, teaching them to cook healthy meals will help them to think even more about the food they eat.

3. Do it Together – Don’t just take your kids along to the grocery store – get them involved in the shopping and meal planning. Looking for a certain food on the shelves can be a fun game for young ones, while older kids can get involved in actively choosing what they’d like to have to eat that week. If they have trouble making healthy choices, you can always give them a list of options to choose from. When it comes to packing lunches for school, this is something you can get them involved with as well. Asking them what they’d like each day and assigning them simple tasks, like putting snack food in mini plastic bags, is a good way to start. Someday they might even want to make their lunches all by themselves!

4. Use Foods they Like – Kids simply aren’t going to eat food they don’t like, especially when you aren’t at school to encourage them to eat their Brussels sprouts at lunchtime. Instead, take advantage of the healthy foods they don’t like. Kids tend to like fruits and sweeter vegetables such as carrots, celery, or cucumber. If they don’t like a wide variety of healthy foods, you could try to add variety in the way you prepare the food. For example, you could give them different dips for their vegetables, like hummus, cheese, or peanut butter. In the meantime, you can encourage them to gradually try new foods at home.

5. Have Fun – There are plenty of things you can do to add fun to your child’s lunchbox. Use cookie cutters to cut fruits, vegetables, cheese, and even sandwiches into fun shapes. Come up with fun names for foods – you could call an egg salad sandwich a Sunny Sandwich for example – or even let your kids make up the names themselves. Since kids love desserts, you could find healthy recipes for sweets you can make together, such as oatmeal cookies or banana bread.

Andrea Erins has been a college professor for 13 years and likes to write about various topics related to education. She is the owner of the site  href=http://www.mastersineducation.com

The past few months have been amazing, our whole Teach Children to Cook strategy is gaining so much momentum as parents and educators alike discover the merits in what we are doing. In a nutshell our strategy has morphed from teaching children to cook into getting kids food savvy, hence our new logo and name Food Savvy Kids.

Whilst cooking remains very much at the core of what we are doing, we are now including the bigger picture  - issues such as making good food choices, reading labels, shopping tips etc . Many of these are still communicated via cooking but we really wanted to acknowledge our ‘bigger picture look at things’.

Our new book life love food kids (details in the BOOKS tab above) has really galvanized our intent to treat food as very much part of family life  - we can’t look at it in isolation. I am so excited about life love food kids and can’t wait to share it with you  - it is certainly a very different look at a very big issue that most parents face. A quick glance at our health statistics will show you just how much the old food/nutrition approach isn’t working!!

The plan below shares our vision, objectives and activities of this strategy.

DOUBLE CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Claire’s site www.ItsMyTurnToCookTonight.com remains the same. It is nutrition education strategy cleverly disguised as cooking site for kids – her cookbooks are also nutrition education strategies – just so disguised that kids wont suspect that they are anything other than a cookbook of good tasting food. (details in the BOOKS tab above) To gain kid acceptance words like healthy and nutrition aren’t used very often at all!

DOUBLE CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

I want my children to be totally food savvy by the time they leave home.

While they are at home I typically make around 70% of their food choices. Like most mothers, I am the ‘nutritional gate keeper’ – I do the shopping, decide what most the meals are and stock the pantry with foods I want them to eat. But when they leave home it will be a different story.

I want to give my kids every advantage I possibly can – so that means making them food savvy…

Food savvy means knowing what a good food choice is, appreciating how much we need to eat, understanding a bit about what makes us eat and being able to cook some basic foods.

I think most kids don’t have adequate skills to know enough about food to take good care of themselves. We only need to look at the number of children who are overweight to realize something is wrong in most Western countries.

So I decided I wanted to do something about it – I am just doing the finishing touches on my new book – love life food kids. This is a book especially for parents, it will help you build well adjusted kids with great self esteem, who have developed enough personal responsibility and skills to equip them to make good food choices – for their lifetime.

love life food kids will inspire you to take action – I look forward to sharing it with you in the next couple of months!

Glenda Gourley

recording

AUDIOBOOK:

Part 2: Life love food kids

In my second guest blog Jillian Michaels from www.everydayhealth.com interviews…

Jamie Oliver on the Fight for Healthier Food

The British chef of ‘Food Revolution’ fame is out to change the way we cook, eat, and feed our kids. He tells Jillian Michaels about his efforts to get Americans thinking fresh.

By Jillian Michaels

Jamie Oliver — charming, witty, hyper, personable, emotional, talented are all words that come to mind at the mention of his name. I am a fan and have been for some time, so when tossing around names for my next celeb interview he was on the top of my list. I respect his dedication to health and his heartfelt attempts to improve the quality of our children’s lives. So, I reached out to his “people” and requested an interview. Here’s the conversation that transpired:

Jillian Michaels: First, I want you to know that I am a huge fan and have been for years! Literally since I discovered you while Bob and I were living in Australia — a mad fan.

Jamie Oliver: Thanks so much, it’s still funny to think that I’ve been doing this now for 12 years. The Aussies have always been very good to me. I try and get there every other year.

JM: I really appreciate your taking the time out of your schedule to answer these questions. I wish it was over cocktails. Not so sure what this is about, but I imagine you’d be a fun guy to grab a beer with — make that a light beer. All in moderation, right?

JO: I’m English, so we don’t drink light beer — lagers, ales, stouts — and usually in moderation. It’s a funny thing now that Americans put me with healthy food. I’m not the food police or a diet guy. I am trying to teach people about cooking skills and choosing fresh food over processed. Eat a wide variety of things, in reasonable portions. As a chef, it’s the only way that makes sense.

JM: I appreciate your perspective as one of not only health, but common sense. So that said, let’s get down to business. I loved Food Revolution. How did you originally come up with this concept, and why are you so passionate about fighting childhood obesity? Is there a personal connection to this cause of any kind?

JO: Food is personal. What we choose to eat or feed our families every day is the most personal choice we can make. Next to the mortgage, the food bill is going to be a large investment. When I started looking at school lunches (what we call dinners in England) I was disgusted by what I saw: Turkey Twizzlers, no real food or cooking, just processed crap and reheating. And the more people I talked to — teachers, school cooks, students — I realized how much they wanted to change the system and return to cooking and eating real food. I also saw many studies that showed the correlation between the rise of obesity and type 2 diabetes with the increase in processed food. So I wanted to try and figure it all out, and the best way I know how to do that is film it and give people watching TV more knowledge so they can make different choices. It’s sort of grown from England to America and around the world.

WHILE I WAS LOOKING THROUGH WWW. EVERYDAYHEALTH.COM I SAW A FASCINATING ARTICLE …

Should Parents of Obese Children Lose Custody?

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

If you look at cooking with your children as ‘making a meal’ it is a nice-to-do option and it will remain a low in priority.

If you look at the bigger picture, you will see it for what it really is – nurturing and loving your family. A crucial building block in your child’s development – this will empower you will elevate your focus and commitment. Teaching your children to cook and giving them food skills can be a pathway to confident, happy, children who ooze self-confidence and self-esteem. A happy child contributes to a happy family.

I can’t think of anything else more important  -  SO I WROTE A NEW BOOK ABOUT IT.

Love life food kids is full of tips and strategies to help parents inspire their children to eat a wide range of foods, make good food choices and  have enough skills to be able to prepare good food. Love your children, inspire them to cook! The benefits of cooking are lifelong and too numerous to list here!

Watch this space i will have it loaded to my site really soon!!

It is my pleasure to share a wonderful guest post by Dan Gilbert from the Primrose Day Care Institutes in USA.

Some great advice for those of you with young children. Thanks Dan!

Making time to play with your child can be difficult enough, so imagine trying to find time to teach them as well. By combining the two tasks, you may be able to disguise the learning aspect and spend quality time with your child. Dr. Mary Zurn, Vice President of education for Primrose Day Care Institutes, says kitchen time can be a great way for families to gain extra time together.

For children the kitchen may seem like a fascinating place to be with the bubbling pots, sizzling skillets and delicious smells, yet it can be a very dangerous place for them to play. However, the potential hazards don’t have to keep children out of the kitchen. Dr. Zurn states, “the kitchen is often the most popular place in the house for families to gather. It’s a place for learning and sharing, where the family can enjoy quality time.” Dr. Zurn also emphasizes that “children can develop a sense of responsibility by participating in these simple tasks.”

By following this simple recipe you will be able to teach your child while keeping them safe and having fun:

1.)   Set some ground rules. Before you start, make sure you establish a list of safety rules with your children before you begin cooking. Children need supervision when they’re in the kitchen, so always keep them within sight. Teach children to wash their hands before and after handling food to avoid spreading germs. Remind them on a regular basis what’s safe to touch and what’s not. Make sure the handles of pots and pans are turned inward on the stovetop so you and older children don’t accidentally bump them and spill hot liquids or food.

2.)   Build up skills step-by-step. Children can practice essential skills in the kitchen, such as counting and adding, measuring, following instructions etc. For more advanced skills, start slowly and have your child master easy tasks before attempting harder ones.  Older children can gradually be taught to use a knife. Start them off with a dull spreader, cutting softer items first such as cheese or dough. As your child’s coordination develops, they can move on to slicing or sawing vegetables and fruit with a plastic knife.

3.)   Engage your child meaningfully. Keeping your child engaged my seem difficult, but there are many tasks your child can help with. For example, younger children can help pour water or stir batter. The older children can help measure ingredients or crack eggs. Even the littlest children can feel like they are involved, just grab some pots and pans for them to bang on! Anyway to keep your child engaged will make them feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.

4.)   Keep it fun. Most important, make sure you and your child are having fun together. There are going to be accidents and oopsies, but that’s ok! Spills are easy to clean up. Instead of stressing over the little things, wipe them up and ask your child to try again!

After your meal is complete, let your little chef try the first bite! While sitting and enjoying what you have just made, discuss what you might want to try making next time. Congratulate your child on a job well done and bon appétit!

A total bonus of being able to cook is that you are able to save money by cooking at home. Children pick up budgeting and shopping skills. It is almost always cheaper to cook at home, and if it isn’t, you usually find that the quality isn’t as good as if you had made it yourself.

While Claire was making bacon and egg pie – I was in the kitchen and we were just chatting away when I commented I thought it might be interesting to see how much it cost to make. Not being at all interested in the cost of anything that I paid for, I was surprised when she agreed. Together we chatted away and divided the cost of the pastry by two, halved the egg carton cost, worked out the proportion of the pack of bacon she had used, and made a calculated guess of how much the potatoes and tomatoes cost. She mentally added it all up and divided it by how many hungry teens she thought it would feed. She came to the conclusion that it was a pretty fair price and when she is living in a flat that would be an economical meal to make for dinner. We left it at that.

A few days later she burst through the front door hardly able to contain herself… “Mum I was in a café in town and I saw a scungy piece of bacon and egg pie for sale. It cost MORE for one piece than it cost for me to make it for six people – and it looked all dry like it had been made a few days ago”.

She got it – by herself… sow the seed and they will work it out.