It’s back to school time and we’re running around like crazy making sure everyone has supplies, shoes, clothes, etc for that first fateful day. My five yr old is so excited about her first day of Kindergarten I’m surprised she can sleep. She keeps walking around with her backpack on telling me she’s ready for school.
Searching for Healthy Food Choices
So last night as I walked the grocery store isles, list in hand, I realised I need to stock up on all those handy school lunch items. With four children in school, I go through an enormous number of pre-packaged food even with doing home baking and always having fresh fruit on hand. So I began to search for healthy choices that I’d feel good about them taking, and that would supply the nutrition their growing bodies and eager minds would need to get through the day. Since my kids are responsible for their own lunches I feel compeled to offer as many healthy, high quality choices as possible and try to limit treats.
As I walked, the suggestions of registered nutrional counselor, Linda Miner, for providing healthy choices that kids can put together themselves came to mind. I especially like her 80/20 rule: healthy choices make up 80% of a lunch, treats 20%. As well, this video, with dietician Elizabeth Somer, offers great tips for getting your kids to eat healthy snacks and create a positive relationship with food.
Yoga’s Nutritional Guidelines
These guidelines are very similar to yoga’s principles of nutrition which is to eat small quantities of high quality foods. What exactly is a high quality food? Basically those items which promote the body’s life force without producing toxins. Within the yoga community there are many diet suggestions, some of them contradictory. The one quote which helps clarify for me what type of diet one should follow came from a Yoga Journal article “Eat to Support Your Yoga” by Mary Taylor and Lynn Ginsburg. In it John Schumacher, director of Unity Woods Yoga in Bethesda, Maryland, is quoted as saying:
“As you continue to practice yoga, an intuitive sense of what is right for your own body will emerge. Just as you’d modify a favorite recipe to fit your own tastes as you prepare it repeatedly, so you can adapt a food system to support your practice.”
Helping Children Make Healthy Food Choices
Of course our children need to be exposed to a wide variety of high quality foods in order to know what is right for their bodies. So here are my personal suggestions for getting your kids to make healthy food choices.
- Keep the fridge and cupboards stocked with healthy choices
- Don’t buy junk – you can’t eat it if it’s not avaiable
- Avoid vending machines
- Model good choices and healthy eating behaviors
- Learn all you can about good nutrition
- Drink water, eat fruit
- Keep experimenting and offering high quality foods – you never know when they’ll decide to like it
- and Don’t give in when your kids are whining for something sweet, sticky, salty, fatty and full of perservatives
This summer we reviewed what constitutes a healthy snack with the kids – something from at least two food groups from Canada’s Food Guide (Fruits & Veggies, Grains, Milk & Alternatives, Meat & Alternatives). The kids always have to have a healthy snack before a treat (candy, ice cream, slurpies, etc) and are free to help themselves anytime to the fruit crisper in the fridge. I’m hoping these lessons and habits will continue into school lunches. I’ll just keep scouring those grocery store isles looking for healthy school lunch items and encouraging my children to eat high quality food 80% of the time.
What do you do to help your children make and eat healthy school lunches?
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My fav idea for a great lunch snack is apple and cheese. With the deli cheeses and all the varieties of apples this time of year, you can go all week and never have the same combination! the variety is endless and it give the taste buds a new sensation.
a great idea is a grilled friut salad! the night before while making dinner grill up some peaches, apples, bananas, anything big enough to not slide through the grill. This will add HUGE flavor and if you want to add a bit of additional flavor sprikle fruit with cinnimon sugar while grilling – makes a great lunch snack once chilled. fulfulls that ’sweet and sticky’ need we all have now and again…
remember the assembly line of sandwiches on the cutting board. the wax paper wrap.
I know that jello isn’t that good for you but I often prepare a package and pour them into individual cups for a weeks worth of yummy additions to the lunch/snack menu.