A perfect lunchbox! How to create a healthy and tasty lunchbox for your child.

Healthy eating is the foundation of a happy life. As parents, we must ensure that our children develop good eating habits, ideally by providing them with healthy and delicious food. Meals consumed at school, where a child spends a significant portion of the day, are extremely important and should not be treated as a supplement to the home menu. Unfortunately, not every school is able to provide lunches that will suit a child's taste or other needs, such as food intolerances. Therefore, we offer parents tips on how to prepare simple and nutritious school meals.

What are the basic principles of a balanced diet?

A healthy diet is one that provides the body with the necessary nutrients for life and growth, while also taking into account physical activity.

Simple rules worth following are:

• Following the food pyramid, i.e. the appropriate proportions in meals between different food groups
• 4-5 meals a day without snacking
• Breaks between meals should be a maximum of 4 hours
• 5 servings of vegetables (3-4 servings) and fruit (1-2 servings) per day
• Limiting the consumption of meat, especially red meat, in favor of fish, eggs and legumes
• Drinking 1.5-2 liters of water a day
• Avoiding processed foods, fast food, sweets and salt

What to pack for your child's breakfast at kindergarten or school?

Depending on whether your child attends the school cafeteria, how much time they spend at school, and how other meals are planned in your home, you can prepare a set of snacks, sandwiches, or even a full lunch for them.

What to pack for a second lunch at school

A traditional sandwich is the perfect second breakfast. Its only drawback is that it's often unappealing to children and can quickly become boring. It's worth introducing different variations, experimenting with ingredients and appearance.

The healthiest bread for our little one is whole grain, such as whole wheat, graham, or rye. Recommendations from the Mother and Child Institute , such as ancient wheat bread, will help you choose bread for children. Avoid processed supermarket rolls and tempting bakery yeast rolls. To diversify your daily meals, let's play with sandwiches. Sometimes it might be a healthy homemade hamburger, sometimes a skewer sandwich made by skewering pieces of dark bread, cherry tomatoes, diced yellow cheese, or cucumber.

From time to time, you can replace the bread with another product, such as a tortilla or a healthy cookie full of seeds and dried fruit. You can top the tortillas with vegetables like lettuce, sliced ​​carrots and cucumbers, and slices of roasted meat and yellow cheese. Then, roll the whole thing up and cut it into smaller rolls, similar to sushi rolls.

If you have cooling packs at your disposal, you can diversify your child's lunch with small yogurts and favorite cheeses, which will provide a portion of dairy in the school diet.

What about a child's lunchbox?

Boxed lunches are the closest thing to home-cooked meals, and they can successfully replace cafeteria meals . When preparing these lunches, choose products that will stay fresh all day and taste delicious even without reheating. Follow the guidelines in the food pyramid.

You can buy accessories at online stores that specialize in bento products.

Vegetables should make up the bulk of a school lunch. Raw, undressed, and cut into sticks are ideal. Choose vegetables your child enjoys munching on, such as carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, or cherry tomatoes. You can cook vegetables, but avoid making them into salads or raw salads, which can contaminate not only the child but also the contents of their backpack in a school setting.

Another group of foods are grain products such as groats and rice. You can prepare them the day before. Choose pasta in attractive shapes, such as dinosaurs, whole-grain groats like buckwheat or barley, and brown rice.

On such a base you can put baked chicken breast or legumes, which will be an ideal source of protein in your child's diet .

Complete the meal with healthy fats , such as avocado cut into strips, or nuts and seeds sprinkled over the vegetables.

For older children, you can also prepare a tasty soup, e.g. 2beBIO vegetable soup , which they can take to school in a small thermos.

What snacks should I give my child for school?

Snacks are the easiest place to find unhealthy food. Your child will likely reach for candy bars or cookies. However, preparing healthy treats is really easy. In small containers, fill them with healthy crackers, almonds, small vegetables like cherry tomatoes, carrots, or baby peppers, or chopped fruit like apples and bananas.

From time to time, you can sneak in some sweets, preferably home-made, such as millet muffins, oatmeal cookies or energy-packed power balls, which are sweet balls packed with seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

What to drink for a child

The best drink for children is water. You can choose from brands recommended by the Institute of Mother and Child, such as Kropla Beskidu, Jurajska, or Żywiec Zdrój . Homemade herbal teas and homemade compotes poured into a water bottle are also great for school.

How to encourage your child to eat their lunch box

Delight your child with a lunchbox and transform the food into cute animals and scenes. Be inspired by the Japanese art of decorating lunchboxes (bento).

• Sandwich molds - thanks to them, you can transform slices of bread into dinosaurs, space rockets and other shapes that are attractive to children
• Small cookie cutters - you can cut out stars or flowers from vegetables or cheese - placed on lettuce will transform it into a blooming meadow
• Hard-boiled egg molds - they will turn a boring egg into a cute bunny or car
• Toothpicks (pickers) with animals or eyes that will turn your little one's lunchbox into a cute zoo and a cherry tomato into a funny face

Bunny in a Lunchbox - How to Create a Cute Scene

1. Place cooked or raw vegetables, such as green beans, at the bottom of the box.
2. Form the head and ears of a rabbit from the cooked rice, and make a face from nori seaweed - you can cut it out with scissors
3. You can make a bunny blanket from an omelet, savory pancake or tortilla
4. The entire decoration is made with shapes cut out from cookie cutters. Small hearts made from yellow cheese will adorn the bedding, and a flower made from cold cuts or carrots will adorn the bunny's head.

We are sure that no child will resist such a dish!