So lets get to it! Being a mom of two crazy boys and a real foodie means life is always interesting in our house. When you live the life of real food your ideals do not always match up with the ideas of a 4 or 6 year old. I am constantly faced with the challenge of getting my kids excited about eating clean healthy food over prepackaged salt and sugar filled treats.My husband also struggles with this and it was quite evident the other day when he packed my oldest son’s lunch. Now because we have to do this lunch thing five days a week my husband and I share the dreaded task of packing the lunches. When we were new to eating this way I would assist my husband along but now that we are a few years in I let him figure it out. I do the shopping and food prep so I make sure there are lots of options in the house that would not only make me happy but Jake as well.Sooooo that brings me to Monday two weeks ago. On Monday’s I help out in Jake’s class. At the end of reading lab all the kids grab their snack form their lunch or line up for a classroom provided snack. Jake came up to me and asked if it would be OK if he got the class provided snack instead of his own. Looking over I see that the class provided snack is a standard boxed cookie from the market. I let Jake know that he could not have a cookie (partially because those are for kids who did not bring a snack and because the snack was crap) and that he needed to get his snack from his lunch. He proceeded to glare at me, cross his arms, and stomp to his backpack. I ignored the mini-fit and headed out as well. When we got to his backpack he began to get more and more upset, tears were very close. I peeked into his lunch and this is what I saw:
- Sandwich (turkey/cheese)
- pretzels
- string cheese
- tangerine
- water
UGH! I immediately thought Doug! are you kidding me? How completely boring and unappealing. I wouldn’t want to eat this either. Of course Jake wanted the cookie!
Now because Doug and I always try to look like we are a united front I encouraged the string cheese and tangerine and coaxed him to the cafeteria. Jake followed suit and begrudgingly ate the snack. I reassured him that I would make sure daddy understood that he needed to add some fun food in there as well. When I left the school I immediately called Doug and started with WTF buddy what are you trying to do get our kids to hate us and hate healthy food. I kindly reminded him of the most important key component to raising nutritionally sound healthy kids. As parents we need to make it fun, tasty, and appealing on multiple levels. He of course agreed (kind of ) and then said he was just being lazy. Well lazy aint gonna cut it big guy. So let me repeat again…
Key point!!! What you feed your child must be fun, tasty, and appealing on multiple levels. If it is not those things they will seek food elsewhere. And better yet, lie to you to cover up. I want kids to get to be kids and not feel like they are missing out. Now because I know we all struggle with this I wanted to include a few lunchbox solutions to help you out.
- Snackanimal cookies
- Kettle chips/sweet potato chips/veggie straws
- Organic graham crackers (these do not have HFCS or PHO)
- Yogurt (greek fruit in the bottom)
- Applesauce
- Different types of cheese sticks
- Homemade trail mix (you can find a recipe on my blog)
- Granola Bar (Kids Cliff or TLC)
- Cliff kids twisty fruit bars/ Anne’s bunny fruit snacks
