Episode 149: Time Saving Hacks for Packing a Healthy Lunchbox

Packing school lunch boxes every day can be such a chore, especially when your kid comes home and you realise they haven't eaten a thing you've prepared.  When it comes to packing school lunchboxes, it's important to focus on building a nutritionally balanced lunchbox that balances your children's blood sugar levels, but we also need to find foods our kids want to eat (which is the tricky part!)

In this episode, I will be sharing my time-saving hacks for packing a healthy lunchbox. For more insights on packing a healthy lunchbox, be sure to listen to Episode 53 of the Natural Super Kids podcast.

Let's dive into: 

• Why packing a healthy lunchbox is such a significant part of our kid's overall wellbeing;
• Tips for packing a lunchbox for a fussy eater;
• How to improve nutrition throughout the day, if they won't eat it out of their lunchbox;
• Why healthy lunchbox options are so beneficial for our kids.. (hint: it involves balancing blood sugar levels..);
• We dive into some of my time-saving hacks including:
  • Batch cooking recipes that freeze well and are made to last (hint: sweet snack options);
  • How having a schedule or a plan to "prep ahead" is a game-changer;
  • Why I love to have the lunchboxes cleaned and ready to go when I'm cooking dinner;
  • The key macronutrient you should include, and how to make it easier for you to include it in the lunchbox;
  • How to get the kids involved and put them in charge, plus tips for all ages;
  • Quick, easy supermarket options to have on hand.

Episode Links:

• Join us for the Natural Super Kids Lunchbox Challenge in February. Click here to have access to recipes, masterclasses, community, prizes, and more. 
• Listen to Episode 53: Packing a healthy lunchbox
• Not ready to join us? Join the KLUB waitlist here. 
  
  

• Sign up for our FREE Immunity masterclass here.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:54

Welcome to the Natural Super Kids podcast, where you will discover practical strategies to inspire you to boost the health and nutrition of your kids. I'm Jessica Donovan, a qualified naturopath specialising in kids health, and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to raise healthy and happy kids. Let's get into it. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Natural Super Kids podcast. I feel like this is the first podcast of 2024. It's not, but the first two episodes that we've released in 2024. I actually recorded with guests in December, so this is the first time I am recording from my new office and new, I guess, podcast recording studio. So really excited to be here with you. I hope you've all had a really great summer break and, can you believe, it is that time already that the kids are going back to school. So today's episode is all about time saving hacks when it comes to packing a healthy lunchbox, because I really think this is what trips us up. A lot of us, you know, really understand what is needed in a nutritionally balanced lunchbox. I am going to touch on that as well. But it's the time that trips us up. We get busy, we run out of time and then we are packing lunchboxes in a rush, which means that they are probably not as good nutritionally as they could be. So today I really want to share some of my time saving hacks with you when it comes to packing lunchboxes. My kids are 16 and almost 14. So I've been packing lunchboxes for a little while now and have been through various stages. So when I first started packing lunchboxes when my kids started going to Kindi we call it here in South Australia preschool, I think some other states and places call it I remember I look back on those days fondly because I could pack whatever my kids were. Not really until later on, actually in that Kindi year that I followed about that peer influence which made it so much easier. I remember I would pack mash sardines with avocado, with some little rice crackers. I'd pack boiled eggs. But, as we know, it doesn't take long for the kids around them to go oh, what's that? Oh, that stinks, and then they don't want those kinds of foods in their lunchboxes anymore. And you know I get that. So it's that balance of you know. Definitely now that my kids are teenagers it's even very different from primary school. So I think it's that balance of you know being as good as we can get it nutritionally, but also having our kids be happy to eat it and accept it at school and Kindi as well. So, before we get stuck in, I do want to just talk a little bit about the importance of packing that healthy lunchbox when it comes to our kids health. So you know, the lunchbox food does provide a significant percentage of the food that our kids eat overall, and so it is important that we focus on nutrition in the lunchbox. However, if you have a fussy eater who won't eat anything except vegemite sandwiches and I don't know what else, you know really basic food in their lunchbox or sub-part nutritional food in their lunchbox, you can always make up for it at the, you know, at the tail ends of the day. So you know, really do think about that. And a good example of this is my son now refuses to take like veggie sticks in his lunchbox. This has been happening for a little while since he's been at high school. In the primary school that my kids went to they had sit down lunchtime, so they had, you know, they would happily take a thermos and veggie sticks in high school, and I think this is fairly common across the board, and I know a lot of primary schools are like this as well. It's like go outside, run around and eat while you're out there. So my son particularly wants something he can grab and run with. So you know that often now means a sandwich or a roll or a wrap. He won't take veggie sticks. So what I do is I still cut up those veggie sticks. My daughter takes them, she sits down with her friends and he just has them after school when he gets home. That's the first thing he eats when he gets home. So that's an example of how, if kids won't eat particular foods in their lunchbox, you can get that nutrition into them either before they go to school and after school. Most kids are really hungry after school, so that's a really good time to get some nutritional food into them. Healthy food in the lunchbox will help sustain kids energy throughout the day. It will help to sustain their brain power, their learning, their concentration. It will support their mood and behavior. If kids have, you know, a lot of sugary foods or refined carbohydrates or not enough protein, which I see commonly in kids' lunchboxes, their blood sugar balance is going to be up and down, and up and down, and up and down, which leads to energy fluctuations, concentration issues, mood issues and behavioral challenges as well. So really important to focus on foods that are going to keep their blood sugar levels stable, which is less of the refined sugars, less of the refined white carbohydrates, more protein, more complex carbohydrates and that sort of thing. And, of course, you know, food in general, nutrition in value in general, helps to support kids' overall growth and development, their immunity, their gut health and so much more. So let's dive into some of my time-saving hacks. I do just want to mention we do have a full episode on Packing a Healthy Lunchbox which talks more about the nutritional side of it, and that is Episode 53. So we will make sure that that episode 53 is linked in the show notes. But today, as I said, I want to talk about those time-saving hacks that I personally use. So number one is batch cooking, batch baking. So I'm not one for baking every week. Generally, I like to bake in bulk and I've got certain recipes that I use but come from the Natural Super Kids Club and a lot from our Lunchbox Challenge as well that I can batch cook, and the benefit of this is it saves you a lot of time. Yeah, you spend a couple of hours once a month doing this. But while the dishes are dirty, while you're in cooking mode, you may as well be making bigger batches of recipes or a variety of different recipes that you can wrap up individually and hop in the freezer for kids to grab and run. So batch cooking things like muffins, biscuits or cookies, even homemade muesli bars, cakes they all freeze generally really well and then the kids can have a selection of things that they can grab for snack time. You know a lot of parents will batch cook savory options as well. I tend to stick to the snack sort of sweet options for batch cooking and make the savory part of the lunchbox, you know, on the day or the night before. So batch cooking is big. If you're a club member, you've got access to lots of recipes that are great for batch cooking. If you're not, you can pop your name on the wait list in the link in the show notes and you'll be the first to know when we open the doors. So as well as that kind of big batch cooking session, it's also a really good idea to prep ahead. So have a bit of a schedule for yourself or a routine for yourself where you might do some weekly prep for the lunchboxes and then also maybe some you know night before prep for the lunchboxes. I know a lot of people do pack lunchboxes the night before. I prefer to pack them in the morning, but I do do some of the prep the night before if that makes sense. So I do like to chop up the more hearty veggies you know, after I've been to the farmer's market, for example on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, things like the celery and the carrots that really store really well. So you've got those to just chuck in the lunchboxes. So prepping ahead those veggies can be a big time saver in the morning. The other thing this is this is probably my number one tip for time saving when it comes to packing lunchboxes when you are cooking dinner the night before, have the lunchboxes you know emptied out, cleaned, ready to go and open on the bench. That way you can make some extra bits and pieces or put any leftovers in the lunchboxes or, as you're chopping up the veggies or you know getting the protein portion of the meal ready, you can just pop some of that into the lunchbox. So having those lunchboxes clean, ready and open on the bench as you're cooking dinner a big time saver when it comes to those busy mornings. Another thing that you can do at dinner time is to cook extra protein, whether that be some extra chicken, some extra sausages, some, you know, a bigger roast lamb or roast beef or roast chicken. Whatever you might be making and have that extra protein at the ready for going into lunchboxes. It might go into a wrap or a sandwich or a roll, you might make up a, you know, a chicken salad or some chicken and veggie sticks for your kids. Most kids don't eat enough protein through the day and this is key, as I was talking about before, for their blood sugar balance. Cooking extra protein at dinner time helps you to avoid more of those processed deli meats. You know the ham and the turkey which are, you know, okay. From from time to time, if you are using those kinds of deli meats, you want to try and source nitrate free options, because nitrate is one of those kind of nasty preservatives that are put into those deli meats. But if you're cooking extra protein at dinner time, you won't need to resort to those deli meats as often I know my kids love, you know, a chicken wrap. My daughter will take a chicken salad and, yeah, always, always, always if I'm cooking a roast which happens on Sundays mostly in my house I will cook an extra big roast so that we've all got some extra protein for lunches through the week, or at least the first couple of days of the week. Another way that you can save time and make the process of packing lunchboxes a little bit easier on yourself is to get the kids involved. Now, of course, this will be dependent on how old they are, but put them in charge. Make them responsible for a particular aspect of their lunchbox. Maybe it is. You know you are getting your veggie, your veggie sticks, ready, or you are choosing your you know sweet option from the freezer for young children right up to you know, being responsible for the whole lunchbox for older children. Of course, you know you want to sort of have a bit of a checklist, and I do this with my kids, making sure that they've got some protein in there, you know, do they have a healthy snack? Do they have some veggies and fresh fruit? So you might want to make a little bit of a checklist to make sure that kids aren't just packing a whole heap of you know snacks, like they might do if you're putting them in charge. But we can slowly make them responsible for a small aspect of their lunchbox moving into. You know, like I said, being responsible for their lunchbox completely. So getting the kids involved is a big time saver and I would recommend, if you are getting them involved, get that done the night before, because school mornings, you know, you just don't know what's going to happen and you know you might not be able to rely on them getting out the door on time if they're in charge of their lunchboxes. And I can speak from experience. This gets a bit harder as they become teenagers and they're slower to move in the mornings. My two children were really early risers. Now they are much later risers. It really is true that you know, teenagers kind of their their body clocks change. They they not all, but for the vast majority of teenagers they like to stay up later at night and sleep in later in the morning, and often they're needing to leave the house earlier than they were when they were younger as well. My children certainly do, because they catch the bus to, you know, high school. So if you're gonna get the kids involved, maybe get them involved in the morning. And then, lastly, is to have some supermarket quick, easy, convenient options that are also healthy on hand. So you know, once you have run out of your freezer stash of batch cooking and you might not have got around to another batch cooking session, you might want to have some extra things on hand. You know some rice crackers, some corn chips and popcorn. We really like the crusts, you know crusts with some nut butter or some honey and Butter. We buy this delicious local honey is a good alternative to like a muffin or something like that. Or you could stick with more savory options as well. You know my daughter, for example, will often take like half an avocado just to eat at in her lunchbox. So you know, pre-cut veggies can be a good option, tins of tuna, and of course you don't want to be, you know, necessarily including these foods every single day in the lunchbox. But for those days when you're, you know, kitchens a little bear, your freezer stash is a little bear it's really good to have some healthy supermarket options on hand. Now, you know you might be able to find some, you know, healthy measly bars or dried fruit bars as well, but but that will really be dependent on where you are based and where you shop. But I always like to, you know, source some, some healthy snack options that are quick and easy for those busy, busy weeks or those times when your kitchens a little bear. So I really do hope those tips have helped you and will help you to pack those healthy lunchboxes, you know, all year round, because I think often we start with good intentions. You know we might do a big batch bake before school goes back, but then life gets busy and we, you know, get kind of the the wheels fall off at some point. But I think if you can get into good habits and routines around this and, as I said, getting the kid, you know, getting the kids involved and responsible, they can get involved in that batch cooking session as well, definitely for older kids, you know, you might even want to make them responsible for that If you, if you can do the batch, the batch cooking, you know, if it's not done then you're not gonna have any yummy treats to be taking in your lunchbox. So you know, depending on their age, there's all sorts of ways that you can get them involved. And as a final reminder, you know packing that nutritionally balanced Lunchbox is really going to make a big difference to your kids energy, their learning and brain capacity throughout the day, their mood, their behavior, and If we can get the lunchbox right, you know, it'll really make a difference to those after school meltdowns and moodiness that some kids come home with because of low blood sugar. And if your children are sort of in that boat, of course there's there's lots of different things that can contribute to that. You know that that after school sort of moodiness but nutrition and you know that blood sugar balance is definitely one of those things then make sure you have, you know, a healthy, protein rich snack ready for them when they come home from school as well. Thanks for listening and I will be back in your ears next week. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Head on over to our website, naturalsuperkidscom, for the show notes for this episode, as well as a whole heap of inspiration to help you raise Healthy and happy kids. I'll see you next week. You.