Improve your children's school lunch

For many parents, preparing school lunches for their children is part of the morning routine. Other parents give their children money to buy something at school. And there are others who let their children who are prepared to carry lunch to school.

Parents can do much to try to make lunch for their children to be healthy. Jeanette Sutherlin, nutritionist and Family Affairs and Consumer Cooperative Extension University of California, recommends that you give your children the opportunity to decide what to eat for lunch. She also suggested that any recommendation offered is more of a suggestion than an order, thus increasing the likelihood of actually eat lunch, so either take home or to buy at school.

To prepare school lunches at home that really are healthy, safe and delight your children, Sutherlin offers the following recommendations:

Encourage your children to help plan and prepare school lunches, taking into account nutrition, proper food storage and the cost thereof. It is very important that you guide your children to start, eventually, they will probably be responsible for preparing their own lunches.

Include at least four of the five major food groups such as grains, fruits, vegetables, high protein foods and dairy products. For grains, choose muffins or bagels with low fat, screw-type rolls (bagels), whole wheat bread, pita-style bread and low fat crackers. Choose fruits as bananas, grapes, apples, oranges into sections, melons, peaches, pineapple or kiwi in a small bowl, children eat more fruit if they have to peel or cut. You can include vegetables such as carrot sticks, celery and jicama, broccoli and cauliflower, cucumber slices and, on sandwiches, salad.

Foods high in protein that are well suited for school lunches are processed slices of lean meats, tuna, cooked chicken pieces, peanut butter, beans and sunflower seeds. Also include a dairy product as low-fat yogurt, low fat cheese and cheese known as "string cheese." Your children can also buy milk at school.

Take insulated lunch boxes to carry food as well as multi-purpose synthetic ice. The night before, prepare everything you do not have to heat and store in coldest part of refrigerator. In the morning, put the synthetic ice in a lunch box. If you include soup, heat and pour into the thermos just before their children leave school course.

Upon returning from school, get rid of any food rich in protein or dairy products has included in his lunch and that their children have not eaten. As this kind of food is heated during the day, the bacteria multiply and cause food poisoning.

Since not all people have the same care when preparing food, encourage your children not to share your lunch by someone else.

"Whether they prepare their children a lunch with soup or stew in a thermos, last night's pizza (most of the kids like cold), sandwiches or foods such as those mentioned above, it is good that from time then include in their children's lunch something special, like a rich cookie with lots of fiber and iron ", the specialist recommended.