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Nutrition

Packing A Healthy Lunch Box For Your Child

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Nutrition and diet are immensely important for optimum health. This is even more important when it comes to children. A child’s diet needs to be balanced and contain all needed vitamins, nutrients, and minerals. A healthy diet will keep children’s energy levels and concentration high. Children spend a lot of their time at school so it is essential that they have healthy lunch boxes. Parents struggle to pack healthy lunches for their children because of fussy eaters and limited time, but in this interesting article, we look at some great and healthy lunch box ideas for children.

Healthy Lunch Boxes For Children

The fundamentals of a healthy lunch box

Fruit and vegetables

Fruit and vegetables will provide nutritional vitamins and minerals for your children as well as energy due to the sugar in the fruit. When packing your children’s lunch, try and include at least one serving of vegetables or salad and at least one serving of fruit if not more. Vegetables can be raw, such as carrots or celery sticks or cooked from the evening before and mixed with some couscous or rice. To make the vegetables tastier for the children, why not include cottage cheese or hummus dip. If your children really do not like vegetables, salad with tomatoes and cucumber is another option to make the lunch box a healthy one. When including fruit in your child’s lunch box, this can be a whole raw fruit, sliced up fresh fruit, or even dried fruit, whatever your child prefers.

Dairy

Another element of a healthy lunch box for children is dairy. As your mother always said, dairy is important for healthy teeth and bones and it is part of a healthy and nutritional diet. One should include a low-fat dairy option which can include milk, or some cheese in the form of a block or a few sticks. You could also include a children’s yogurt or some cottage cheese.

Protein

Protein offers a source of slow-release of energy, is great for brain development, and is food for active muscles. One serving of meat, fish, or chicken should also be included in healthy lunch box ideas. For vegetarian children or fussy eaters, eggs, peanuts, and beans are also a high source of protein. Among healthy lunch box ideas, cook your fish, chicken or meat the night before and slice it up for easy eating.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are vital for energy and this is another food source that should feature in your children’s healthy lunch box. However, there are carbohydrates that are better than others, and when opting to make your child a sandwich, use brown bread instead of white and possibly even seeded bread with added nutrients.