Healthy and Creative Back to School Lunch Ideas

With the start of the new school year, it is important that your children get in the good habit of eating nutritious and healthy food. There are many ways for parents to prepare healthy and fun foods for their children.

Create a Lunch Based on a Character Theme

Instead of packing the basic sandwich, snacks, and drink, why not create a lunch around your child's favorite movie or TV show? One idea is to make your child's favorite cookies in the shape of your child's favorite characters. For instance, if you little boy likes the teenage mutant ninja turtles, make the cookies into the shape of turtles. If your little girl likes ponies, make them into the shape of ponies. There are cookie cutters that come in all kinds of shapes. Be creative.

As far as sandwiches go, you can be creative with these as well. For the ninja turtle example, you can take green food coloring and apply it to the bread. The bread will soak it up like a sponge and it will spread throughout. If you want, you can use the green food coloring to create a picture of a turtle on the sandwich. The same can be done with the pony example.

Does your child like cars? If so, you can create a car from a sandwich. Just take a piece of bread, put whatever you want in the sandwich, and then fold the bread in half. Pinch the crust in a way that makes it look like it has tires. Use a combination of food coloring colors to create the desired color of the car. Use the food coloring to add the windows, tires, and anything else you want.

Substitute Healthier Snacks for Unhealthy Ones

Instead of sending your child off to school with potato chips, Pringles, or cheetos, consider buying gold fish, wheat thins, or baked chips. If you want, you can make these snacks into different colors. For instance, you can take wheat thins and make them look like checkers. You can already buy colored gold fish and chips in a local supermarket. I know when I was a young kid that I liked to eat foods that were colorful and inviting.

Other ideas for healthy snacks include apples, strawberries, grapes, etc. You can even decorate certain fruit if you'd like. For instance, you can add faces to the grapes using food coloring.

Another creative idea is to create a necklace out of a small fruit such as grapes or strawberries. Take a needle and attach a piece of string to it. Push the needle through each piece of fruit and use as many as it takes to create a necklace. It will be easy for your child to pull apart.