As the new term looms on the horizon, the Packed Lunch Challenge follows as parents try to think outside the box to make eating a pleasure.
When my offspring (now 23 and 20) were at school, they were sent home with practical recommendations from the Food Standards Agency to give unscrupulous parents like me advice on what to eat in their packed lunches.
All that was on the list was huge advance planning, an unlimited supply of cash, several free hours every evening, a trained chef on call (I have that now, but not then) and an upscale deli next door.
According to the FSA, an “ideal” lunch box for a child between nine and twelve years old would contain falafel and salad in a flatbread, hummus, peaches in fruit juice, reduced-fat yogurt and a small box of apple juice.
I was game. I mummified flatbreads in cling film, filled containers with fruit, sent yogurt (and the occasional spoon if the kids were lucky), and gave myself high-five.
You may also want to see:
What came home that first night was the stuff of nightmares: crumbling pittas filled with wet ashtray-brown filth, limp lettuce, and some kind of unpleasantly flavored dust.
Likewise, if your kids are like mine, the idea is to give them something in liquid and expect it to have a safe route to school, like giving a sharp grenade with a loose needle.
By the time mine went through the gate towards the school, the peaches had escaped from their Tupperware grave and were seeping quietly through every school book, sports equipment and uniform within a 100 m radius.
What remained was the reduced-fat yogurt. Actually, the kids managed to get off the yogurt – probably after opening it and putting it back in their lunch box to greet you at 3:15 p.m. with a pebbly, rancid school cone.
In short, the only thing consumed out of the lunch box is the juice – everything else your child eats is bullied by the weaker children whose mothers give them mini buns and cheesestrings.
For children between five and eight years of age, the FSA menu was even more demanding: a piece of tomato-mozzarella-pastrami-ciabatta pizza, carrot sticks, kiwi-strawberry-fruit salad, low-fat strawberry-quark frais and a bottle of water.
This wasn’t a menu to put together in your pajamas after a panicked trip to a 24-hour garage.
Other “ideal” menus were even more off-putting – poppy seed bagels with liver pate and cucumber, lamb, pea and bean samosas, smoked mackerel and potato salad with mushrooms, spring onions and pine nuts, whole grain muffins with anchovies, cream cheese and cucumber, quorn and vegetable skewers: it was like On the express train of a working mother to a nervous breakdown.
To be completely honest, I had a thought as I was preparing packed lunches for my kids: would they eat them? I would rather have had a peanut butter sandwich and a pack of chips than ignore my goat cheese tortellini, served with beetroot jelly and saffron tendrils that I conjured up between work and everything else.
The best advice I’ve ever been given about packed lunches was when I was told that a child’s diet isn’t based on what they eat during a few hours at school. All you need is fuel for the afternoon.
In the first few weeks of the semester, the lunch break at school is not the time to test your children’s adventurous eating habits.
Instead, try new foods on the weekends and discover new foods they might like and ask if it would be something they would enjoy at school.
Include your kids in their meals and ask them to help you pack their lunch and with our recipes for muffins, popcorn and cookies (all deceptively healthy!
Easy lunch box recipes
Cheese and zucchini muffins
ingredients
Power 12
1 small zucchini, grated (can be replaced with corn or peas)
100g cheddar cheese, grated
225g self-raising flour
50ml olive oil
175ml semi-skimmed milk
1 egg
Black pepper
method
1. Preheat the oven to gas 6 / 200C / 180C convection
2. Put 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin.
3. Put the zucchini, grated cheese, flour, oil and milk in a mixing bowl.
4. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, add some black pepper and then add to the mixing bowl. Stir until combined.
5. Distribute evenly on the muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes.
6. Great in lunch boxes or eaten with soup!
Fruity oat biscuits
ingredients
Power 18
225g oatmeal
225g plain flour
250g mixed dried fruits, larger ones cut in half
140g unsalted butter
225g light, soft brown sugar
90ml maple syrup
2 tbsp boiling water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
method
1. Preheat the oven to gas 3 / 170C / 150C convection. Line three large baking sheets with non-stick parchment paper.
2. In the bowl, mix the oatmeal, flour and dried fruit with a pinch of salt and set aside.
3. Put butter, sugar, and maple syrup in a medium saucepan and heat gently until melted. Set aside a kettle while cooking and mix the boiling water with the baking soda in a small bowl and pour the mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. It will foam. Stir to combine.
4. Mix in oat mixture and stir until combined.
5. Shape the mixture into balls – use an ice cream scoop – and place on the baking sheets lined with baking paper, leaving space. Press each ball lightly flat.
6. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, depending on how tough you want your biscuits to be – they will set as they cool. Let cool on sheet metal for a minute, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Microwave popcorn
ingredients
Makes three servings
100g of unpopped popcorn
1 teaspoon of vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
method
Mix the unroasted popcorn and oil in a cup or small bowl. Pour the coated popcorn into a brown paper bag and sprinkle with the salt. Fold the top of the bag over twice to seal the ingredients.
Cook in the microwave on full power for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, or until you hear a pause of about 2 seconds between pops. Gently open the bag to avoid steam and pour it into a serving bowl. Send to school in airtight pots.
How to build a brilliant (and healthy) lunch for a school packed lunch
1. Base the lunch box on foods like bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes – choose whole grains where you can.
2. If you have a whole grain avoidance, try making a checkerboard sandwich where one slice is white bread and the other is whole grain or brown bread.
3. You can also try bagels, pittas, and wraps that come with pots with DIY fillings.
4. Try to use as little spread as possible in sandwiches and avoid mayonnaise.
5. Large sandwich fillings include lean meats like chicken or turkey, fish like salmon or tuna, low-fat cream cheese, and hard cheese.
6. Add salad to sandwiches – everything counts for five on your child’s day!
7. Add cherry tomatoes or strips of carrot, cucumber, celery, and pepper and a small saucepan with a dip like hummus.
8. Try to cut down on chips by replacing them with plain popcorn or rice cake instead.
9. Add bite-sized fruits like chopped apple (with a squeeze of lemon juice so it doesn’t turn brown), peeled Satsuma segments, strawberries, blueberries, halved grapes, or melon slices.
10. Dried fruits like raisins, sultanas, and dried apricots are great but should only be eaten with meals to reduce the risk of tooth decay.
11. Try swapping chocolate, granola bars, and cookies for malt bread, fruit tea cakes, or fruit bread.
12. Involve your children in the production of their lunch boxes: they are more likely to eat them if they help!
