Kids healthy lunchbox ideas

Back to school also means back to lunch box filling! These days, more and more schools are banning certain foods in lunch boxes which often means we as mums are struggling to find healthy lunch box ideas to pack!

However, preparing nutritionally balanced healthy lunches that your kids will love while avoiding nuts and processed sugar, is actually possible!

As there are different rules for each school, we have created a general guide for a safe healthy lunch box that is simple, healthy and most importantly – all yummy…

School lunch box rules

Do not pack food that can trigger allergies – like nuts!

A main ban in most schools lunch boxes is nuts. This includes any kind of food that has a nut trace – like certain cakes, peanut butter sandwiches etc.

Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network Health has reported that the majority of food allergic and anaphylactic reactions occur in preschool-age children.

Try using seeds to replace nuts so your child is still experiencing that nutty taste in the form of these muesli bars in an allergy-friendly way.

Some ways to avoid the risk of anaphylaxis are to encourage your children not to share their foods, wash their hands after eating and get help from a teacher if another child looks unwell.

For some more nut-free and allergy-friendly school lunches, look at these 6 delicious ideas.

Meal plan in advance

Plan: Use our 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge shopping list to keep track of all your ingredients and what is low and needs topping up. This will not only ensure you are never left unprepared as you won’t be buying unnecessary items so frequently.

Prep in advance: Involving your kids in the cooking process of school lunches can be the difference between an empty lunch box come home time and a full one. Get your little ones excited to help by picking and packing school lunches and snacks for the week and start prepping.

Love your leftovers: After dinner, spoon the leftovers into portion containers and transfer them to the fridge or freezer! This is the most efficient method for busy parents.

Storage

Are your kids sick of their soggy sandwiches? The heat doesn’t help it either.

To keep food fresh and appetising, try adding a frozen drink wrapped in a plastic zip-lock bag as a substitute for an ice-block cooler.

By the time the bell rings for lunch, your Homemade gummies (a great swap for lollies) will be cool and fresh for your little one. Alternatively, fill your child’s water bottle with water and freeze it, then place it in the lunch box to keep food fresh and cold.

Checking if your kid’s school bags are kept outside or stored away from the sun is key to preventing food from going bad.

Pack healthy sweet treats

This doesn’t need to be difficult. Avoiding packaged and processed foods is a great rule of thumb when packing your child’s lunch box as it ensures your child is being given wholesome lunches and nutritious snacks.

Yes, it can sometimes be easier to throw a packet of chips or a store-bought ‘healthy’ bar into the lunch box when you’re frantically trying to get out the door, but meal prepping can actually make up for this. How? By making extra portions the night before and using leftovers for lunches, preparing earlier, and then freezing also saves more time and keeps your kids healthy!

If your child is a fussy eater who can’t bear the thought of a lunch box without some kind of ‘junk food’, try your hand at baking these kids healthy treats which have NO sugar at all but taste like they’ve come from a candy factory.

Healthy ratio

Nutrition Australia says a lunch box has 4 components, a main item, fresh fruit or vegetable snack, a second snack, and a drink.

The Australian National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey in 2007 reported that there are key areas of nutrition that school kids are lacking. Some of these include calcium, fresh fruit and vegetables but with an increase in sugar.

As most kids are in school five days a week, their lunch box constitutes a high portion of their daily food intake so ensuring multiple food groups are covered is essential.

An easy way to create a balanced lunch box is to include an item of food from each of the 5 food groups:

• Vegetables
• Protein, including meat, poultry, seafood or plant-based protein.
• Grains or foods high in complex carbohydrates, e.g. multigrain bread
• Fruit.
• Dairy or foods high in calcium.

Healthy School Lunch Ideas

Here is a Healthy Mummy approved day in a balanced lunch box:

Fruit and vegetable break:

Carrot/vegetable sticks, cherry tomatoes, grapes.

Morning tea:

Raspberry swirl muffin, cheese or cream cheese with seed crackers (grains, calcium, protein).

Lunch:

Tuna pasta salad (grains, vegetables, protein).

Healthy Kids Smoothies

Our kid’s smoothies are LOVED by kids all over the Country – check them out here

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