Brown Bags Never Tasted This Good
Days of sitting around the pool have been replaced by classes, homework, and extracurricular activities at school. For some parents, the start of a new school year also means back to packing lunches for their children, and perhaps, themselves. Try these helpful tips and ideas from Fruits & Veggies – More Matters or check out PFK’s Ideal Meals to fill your ‘brown bag’ with fruits and vegetables.
While it is appealing to fill lunch boxes with single, pre-packaged items, be careful! Many of these items contain high-levels of sodium, saturated fat and low-levels of vitamins and minerals. Children and adults of all ages need to make half their plate – or brown bag or lunchbox – fruits and veggies to have all of the nutrients and proper energy to perform their best.
Make packing lunches easy and tasty by choosing a healthy item from each of the five food groups for a balanced lunch: Fruits, Vegetables, Protein, Grain, and Dairy. At the beginning of each week gather the family and make single-serving bags filled with dried fruits and nuts, cherry tomatoes, celery and carrot sticks, grapes, peppers, cauliflower and other cut vegetables, and whole grain crackers. Place tuna, chicken or egg salad in small containers to pair with the crackers. Or, you can try great recipes for a Fruity Thai Pita Pocket, Sassy Tuna Sandwich, PB Fruit Roll-up, or a Zesty Pasta Salad. Plus, many fruits are now available in single-serving cans such as mandarin oranges, mixed fruit, peaches, and pears. Keep healthy lunches cold by freezing 100% juice boxes and placing in the bottom of the lunch box.
“These easy-to-do tips and ideas are a great way to involve the entire family in packing healthy and delicious lunch boxes; simply pack lunch each day by selecting an item from each food group on the list, with an eye toward half of the lunch as fruits and veggies,” says Elizabeth Pivonka, president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation. “Our consumer-friendly website, www.FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.org, offers simple-to-do and easy-to-understand tips and advice to make half your lunch box fruits and vegetables. While on the site, consumers can also see our lunch box makeover and take the MyPlate Makeover Challenge.”
After school snacks provide another great opportunity for adding fruits and veggies to your child’s day. Need some fresh snack ideas? Check out Ideal Meals: Let’s Do Snacks to find recipes for produce-filled goodies for in the lunch box or after school.
Adding more fruits and vegetables to lunch boxes is fun and easy with so many available flavors and varieties of fresh, frozen, canned, dried, or 100 percent juice. Increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten everyday, or filling half your plate with fruits and veggies, can make a big difference in health and energy levels because more does matter. Pivonka says that eating fruits and vegetables is a sound investment in long-term health, and a very inexpensive part of a healthy lifestyle.