Stop Blogging and Cook

What you eat for lunch today is what you pack in your lunchbox.  No more, no less.

ENTHUSIASM FOR FOOD
It took an Englishman to hold up the mirror to Americans to gaze, unfettered, at their relentless eating habits in the cold light of a typical Huntington, West Virginia day.

In case you missed it, Jamie Oliver is seeking to get one small American town on track for eating better at home and at school.  I predict a trend, with any luck at all, that schoolchildren nationwide will embrace this food revolution.  It is prescient of how a nation can reinvent it’s food ways through nourishing meals of whole foods in normal portions.  On ABC, Sunday evenings at 10pm, you don’t want to miss it.

I’ve often thought that changing the food habits of Americans would begin with children because if you get kids on board with a good thing, they’ll bring their parents around, lending support for healthful eating if given half a chance.  With the kids on board, it’s easy to challenge the status quo.  It’s up to adults to get kids actively participating to counter the effects of the big bucks Big Food spends on marketing.  Marketing to your kids.

WHAT’S IN YOUR LUNCHBOX?
Thanks to Katherine for her suggestion of what to pack for school lunches, the inspiration for this post.  The very best way to get your kids to eat their lunch is to get their help in its creation.  Begin with familiar foods.  The lunchbox is not the place to spring sudden, untested adult creativity.

Elicit your children’s participation in preparing meals, not as a one off, but as a matter of routine.  I’ve addressed this early and often.  People will eat what they have a hand in preparing.  And as they have a greater hand in the preparation, they will become more valuable members of the family and the world, able to feed themselves early on and eventually able to take charge of their own health.  So get them into the kitchen and let’s start cooking!  We’ll all have fun.

First off, can you spell L-E-F-T-O-V-E-R-S?  The dinner your child helps prepare tonight can be an engaging lunch tomorrow or the next day.  Plan to save energy — yours and the earth’s — by cooking once for multiple meals:

1. Roast Chicken & Gravy for dinner becomes a chicken drumstick for lunch.
2. A pot of Vegetable Soup for dinner turns up tomorrow in a thermos.
3. Roast a rack of BBQ Spareribs; make it a double so you’ll have extra for lunch.
4. Teriyaki Chicken Wings can be prepped one night, marinated the next day, cooked that evening and taken for lunch (both to school and work) the day after.  Cook along with chicken quarters for dinner.  Meal planning easily extends from dinner to lunchtime.  Chances are that kids will beam with glee at their parent taking the same lunch to work as they are to school.

Make a popular sandwich on whole grain bread, or put a popular salad in a covered container.  If kids make it, they can make it to their taste:

1. All-time favorite Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich, or PB & sliced banana.  Sprinkle with wheat germ for a nutritional boost with a crunch.  Or, how about crackers with a small cup of almond butter?
2. It’s hard to argue with Tuna Salad.  Make a sandwich or (because tuna salad sandwiches can get a little soggy) put tuna salad in a cup along with two slices of bread and let your older child assemble his own.
3. Forbidden Rice Chicken Salad might focus undue attention on your child in the cafeteria, but classic Chicken Salad will  pass muster, in a small container or between two slices of bread.  If they don’t like green onions, just leave them out.
4. If St Patrick’s Day — or just another Wednesday — leaves you with leftover Corned Beef, combine it with some mild Dijon mustard on one piece of bread and mayo on the other for a fulfilling sandwich; put some lettuce in there, too, to cut the richness of the meat.  If your child likes cilantro, use that.

Pack other good things along with the main event:

1. Fresh seasonal fruit with its own, convenient packaging.
2. Pop a pickle in a small jar, sweet or dill, or a few olives.
3. Nuts:  sunflower seeds, almonds, pistachios, pecans or walnuts.
4. Celery stuffed with peanut or almond butter.  Apples are also good with nut butters.

AVOID:

1. Fruit juice. Fresh fruit is much better because it has natural fiber, and most juice is just sugared water.
2. White bread, made with refined white flour, has no nutritional value at all.
3. Packaged food products with added salt, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and other additives offer a less satisfying meal.
4. ‘Enriched’ food products with engineered nutrients are nutritionally void.  Buy whole foods.

POWERFUL MESSAGE
You’re teaching your kids the power of whole foods as well as how to recognize balanced meals and normal portions.  This should get you through a week or two of lunches.  I will revisit this important topic from time to time.  Keep in mind that almost every Preparation has a few lines at the end labeled “WORKPLACE LUNCH“.  While most are geared towards reheated lunches, some can be eaten cold, so look for those.  And don’t forget the napkins!

Tags: bbq ribs, chicken salad, egg salad, good for you food, health, healthy choices, leftovers, peanut butter & jelly, real food, school lunch, Soup, teriyaki chicken wings, tuna fish salad, vegetable soup, vegetables, whole grain bread, workplace lunch