How to Make Sure Your Children Won't Trade Their Brown Bag Lunch

Contents of the lunch should give a child the chance to take a new and different look at how they eat food. Food is fuel...the "gasoline" our bodies run on. So what goes in the lunch will not only be nutritious, but fun so the child wants to eat it.

So how to get started? Of course the container can be as simple as a brown bag, lunchbox or something really cool like a clean, empty tennis ball tube. A brown bag can be decorated with stickers or using a marker to draw messages or silly faces on the bag.

I recommend buying big bags of baked chips or pretzels then filling sandwich or snack size bags with these. The smaller individual bags are more expensive and have much less as far as how much is in them. Also, buying apples and slicing them yourself is simpler and less expensive than buying pre-sliced fruit. To keep sliced fruit from browning, just use a solution of lemon juice and water on the fruit.

Ingredients for the lunch can vary. Whole grain bread, whole wheat tortillas, bananas, apples, oranges,grapes, raisins, peanut butter, celery sticks, baby carrots, string cheese, hard-boiled eggs, boxes of fruit juice (not fruit drink) which can be frozen and will keep contents of the lunch cold until time to eat. If their school has milk tickets for sale, take advantage of that and let your child have milk with their lunch. Wraps can be made with tortillas, mayonnaise (regular or light), deli sliced turkey, chicken, ham or cheese. Wraps can also be made with lettuce leaves in place of the tortillas. Salads can be put into a sandwich bag and the dressing into a shot glass size plastic container. At lunch the child pours the dressing into the bag and shakes it...instant salad.

"Ants on a Log:" This is very simple. Cut celery into manageable size sticks, spread with a small amount of peanut butter and put raisins in the peanut butter. Make a favorite sandwich, say peanut butter and honey then use a cookie cutter to cut the sandwich into fun shapes. Pieces of cheese or deli sliced meats can also be cut into different shapes. The bonus is mom or dad can eat the leftover pieces of whatever is cut. A good way to ensure your child (or grandchild) is going to eat whatever is put into their lunch is to make them an active participant in the choosing of ingredients. "Do you want the hard-boiled egg or string cheese?" "Do you want grapes or a banana?" If a child is given the choice they are more likely to eat what they have chosen.

I'm always in favor of putting in a surprise treat like a snack size candy bar, a "healthy" cookie (oatmeal and raisin, peanut butter or ranger cookies.) Also, my grandchildren love tortillas spread with margarine or butter and sprinkled with sugar or a cinnamon/sugar mixture. (For those of us who are of scandinavian ancestry this is close to having lefse.)

The point is to get the child to like what they're eating and giving them the choice of what to have. The lunch can be made in the evening so the morning rush to work and school is less rushed. All you have to do is reach into the refrigerator, grab and go!