7 Spectacular lunches you can pack for your kids

You can pack the healthiest of lunches for your child, but if it isn’t appetizing to him or her, it will be traded or tossed, usually in favor of a far less health lunch.

Let’s face it, if you pack hummus and sprouts on whole wheat pitas, along with salmon jerky and raw celery sticks, your kids might trade that lunch for a Coke and two packages of Skittles in a heartbeat.

So the trick is to come up with lunches you can pack for your child that are both nutritionally health and appetizing from the child’s point of view…which is not necessarily yours.

It starts with complex carbs.  Make sure that they come from whole wheat bread, whole wheat tortillas, whole wheat pitas, or pasta.  If your child will eat brown rice, that’s great. 

Then there’s protein.  Turkey and chicken are ideal for growing children.  A few slices of nitrate-free deli meat wrapped up in a wheat pita with delicious sauce can fill the bill.  A sandwich made with chicken breast can also be very tasty.

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1. Turkey salad rolls—Chop or use a food processor to blend turkey, celery, onion, and pickles or pickle relish. Pulse until minced; transfer to a bowl. Mix in fat free mayonnaise until well-moistened, along with sweet pickle juice, and add some chopped hard-boiled egg.  Put it inside whole wheat pitas along with shredded lettuce.

2. Mini-muffin surprise box—Kids love bite-sized morsels, so smear healthy raw almond butter onto whole wheat bread, fold it over, and cut it up into finger-sized pieces.  Add a whole-grain mini-muffin and baby carrots with ranch dip and you’ve got a treasure box. 

3. Chicken, cornbread, grapes—3 ounces of sliced deli chicken without nitrates, a healthy cornbread muffin, and a handful of washed grapes in a baggie, along with a half-pint of skim milk. 

4. Roast beef wrap & more—Slices of thin lean roast beef wrapped inside a whole wheat tortilla smeared with mustard, fat free mayo or both (depending on the child’s taste), and a banana.

5. PBJ pita—Healthy raw cashew butter and healthy strawberry jelly smeared into a mini-pita pocket, plus a half-pint of skim milk and an apple.

6. Snacker’s special—Flavored healthy yogurt, graham crackers (to dip into the yogurt), handful of washed strawberries, and a mini-granola bar.

7. Cool cubes—Cubed chicken breast and cubed string cheese (just cut sections) in a baggie, along with a small package of healthy pretzels and a small container of ranch dip for dipping.

More tips on how you can improve your child’s health can be found by visiting www.energyfirst.com.