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February 24, 2010
Jackson’s Lunch:
Today’s lunch was born out of lack of time and desire to make a proper egg salad for Jackson’s lunch box. I just didn’t feel like chopping up tiny bits of egg, celery and onion when I figured I could do the same sort of thing without all the chopping. I’ll call it my “composed” egg salad on crackers.
I sliced the egg with an egg slicer, then layered the egg with thin slices of celery onto a wheat cracker. I “glued” the pieces together with a tiny speck of canola mayo. A sprinkle of salt and, viola! Egg salad in a much shorter amount of time. Plus, it’s kind of fun for Jackson to think he’s getting a sort of fancy hors d’oeuvres kind of goodie.
A note on the apple and celery slices. I wanted to make sure Jackson ate the entire stalk of celery, not just the few slices from the egg crackers. Apple and celery are a fantastic combo! If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to do so.
Healthy in a hurry.
February 23, 2010
We’ve been busy around here lately with school, violin lessons and practice, hockey, and a weekend trip to Washington, D.C. When we’re busy, I’ve learned it’s really important to have healthy, easy food ready to go.
I’m betting you’ve already been told that a time or two, but it’s so true. It’s easy to get into bad eating habits when things get hectic because so much of what is fast and easy can be unhealthy–fast food restaurant drive-thrus, fried dinner-in-box at the supermarket, grab ‘n’ go-sized bags of chips and a soda at the 7-Eleven. For our family, I’ve learned to do some planning ahead so that when things get crazy our eating habits don’t have to suffer.
For one thing, I always have whole pieces of fruit in a bowl on the table in plain sight. Having fruit available and ready to go makes choosing healthy quick and convenient.
When I have five minutes to spare, I wash and cut up veggies to keep on hand in the fridge for quick grab and go snacking. I love having veggies ready to go for two reasons: One, if I have to clean and cut something up for either Jackson or me when we’re hungry or rushed, it won’t happen; and two, if they’re there staring at me when I open the fridge, there’s no excuse not to eat them.
Also, when I grocery shop, I think in terms of how I plan a meal–whole grains, veggies, lean proteins–to help guide my purchasing. For example, I buy whole grain breads, but I also buy whole grain tortillas, bagels, crackers and English muffins (grains) and then use them as substitutes for bread when I make sandwiches. It keeps lunch interesting, plus it’s easy to throw together a “sandwich” quickly even if we’re out of bread.
This morning I used a wheat tortilla for Jackson’s lunch. I basically rolled cream cheese, greens and chicken in a wheat tortilla and cut it into little wheels. It took less than two minutes; a quarter of that time was cutting the roll into pieces to make it more fun and appealing for little fingers. The veggies were prepped and waiting in the fridge. The grapes had been washed and were in a bowl on the counter. And the treats were quick to toss into Jackson’s lunchbox. Lunch was ready and the kitchen was cleaned up in about seven minutes. Quick is great and can be healthy if I plan ahead–something so important when life has you running.
*Here’s a little food for thought. When we’re busy, it’s easy, convenient and often very welcoming to dine out. We all do it; we all enjoy it. You might, however, want to skip ordering this item for your kids. Check out not just the calories, but the amount of saturated fat as well. According to the American Heart Association, people over two years old should limit saturated fat to less than 7% of their total daily calories. That would be a maximum of about 10 grams of saturated fat daily for a child Jackson’s age. Wow!
Multigrain Cheerios are pretty sugary, but I can live with them being a treat since they contain fiber and whole grains.
February 5, 2010
I’m passionate about giving Jackson healthy food, and I avoid processed food as much as possible. I am not, however, a fanatic. If we go to a birthday party where hotdogs are served, he has a hotdog. If I stop at 7-Eleven for a newspaper, I will ocassionally buy him a mini-sized bag of Doritos. In other words, I’m a believer in moderation.
I also believe no one should feel deprived. Friends ask me how I plan to get Jackson to eat healthfully when I am no longer in charge of his meals. My answer is this: By teaching Jackson about healthy food now and why it’s important, I hope to instill in him a desire to eat healthfully throughout his life. Even now, with him being only five, it isn’t at all uncommon for he and I to have fairly meaningful conversations about the importance of fiber, the vitamins in fruits and veggies, or why too much sugar is not good…all said in way a five-year-old can understand and relate to.
When I was a child, my mom was part-owner of a health food store. We ate healthy food virtually all the time. She never allowed sugary cereal, junky snack foods, or soda in the house at all. When we were out, though, I was sometimes allowed to get what I considered a treat–a sweet snack cake, a small bag of chips, or maybe a can of soda. I never felt deprived, though that didn’t stop from begging for Fruit Loops when we were at a regular grocery store.
It’s the same with Jackson. I hate to always say no when he asks for items that aren’t the healthiest choice. I like to look at these situations as an opportunity for learning. We look at the nutrition label and list of ingredients together. If he notices an ingredient we typically avoid, he usually says something like, “That’s not good for me, is it?” In a case like this, it isn’t just me saying no. It’s him recognizing something unhealthy and knowing he should choose something else. It’s sort of like learning the difference between right and wrong and making the right choice, even if it’s a little difficult.
Teaching kids to make healthy choices is time consuming, difficult, and requires a lot of self-discipline on our part by setting good examples; however, I really hope it’ll pay off by Jackson making good choices for life. It worked for me. Thanks, Mom, for always making me eat right; it really did set me up for a lifetime of healthy eating.
And if Jackson goes the other way and completely rebels by eating Big Macs and french fries everyday, at least I’ll know I tried and he started off on the right foot. Hopefully, if it comes to that, he’ll be able to gain his footing before falling down completely.
February 3, 2010
The snow that fell over the weekend is finally melting off and the kids returned to school today after two uncharacteristic snowdays. Now it’s time to get back on track and get all of our schedules regular again.
First up was lunch. It’s still cold and snowy out, so I wanted to send a warm lunch for Jackson. He loves potstickers, so they seemed the perfect entree. I’ve made potstickers once before, and while they weren’t particularly difficult to make, they required a lot of bowls and pans, as well as a good amount of time. The end result was tasty; however, unlike the dishes that needed washing afterwards, the potstickers didn’t stick around for long at all.
What I’m trying to say is that I now buy pre-made, frozen potstickers in a bag. I’m not partial to any certain brand, but I read the labels obsessively.
In reality, I’m an obsessive label reader whenever it comes to buying prepackaged food. I like sticking to whole food for the most part, but the fact of the matter is most of us need a little help from time to time . My one rule is to read the label and allow the list of ingredients to guide my prepackaged purchases.
I look for items with short ingredients lists and ingredients I recognize. Ellie Krieger of the Food Network show Healthy Appetite has what she calls a “farm verses factory” test. Read the label and choose products with ingredients that can be found on a farm rather than made in a factory. Items I always avoid are partially hydrogenated oils and most anything that sounds like a chemical from science class. Typically, I stay away from highly processed or refined ingredients, as well.
So, yes, I buy and prepare some prepacked foods. But I do so after careful inspection of their labels. It takes a little time at the store, but the health of my family is worth it.
Created out of necessity, these "Hamburger Bites" are fun and tasty finger food dippers.
January 7, 2010
When I buy hamburger (which isn’t very often), I buy at least 90 percent lean organic ground beef. The trouble is, unless I buy it from the butcher counter in the grocery store, it’s always packaged in one pound packages. That’s 16 ounces for three people. At three to five ounces a serving for my family members, we inevitably end up with an extra three or four ounces.
I don’t know about your family, but no one here cares too much for leftover hamburgers for whatever reason. I can’t just throw out what’s left since organic meat is significantly pricier than non-organic (plus, I hate throwing away food), so I came up with an easy use for the leftover ground beef.
I mix up the entire pound of meat with a clove or two of minced garlic and 1/4 cup of Worchestershire sauce, form three hamburgers, then form two or three “Hamburger Bites” with the leftover meat. They are essentially meatballs, which are great finger food when dipped in ketchup and easy to package for Jackson’s lunch. I just cook them while I cook the burgers, refrigerate or freeze them, then reheat for the Thermos when they’re sent for lunch. They’re fun and tasty, two appealing features when you’re feeding a five-year-old.
Jackson and the lunch he helped prepare.
December 22, 2009
Most mornings, Jackson wakes up about an hour before we have to head out the door for school. That gives him just enough time to wake up with a cup of milk, have breakfast, get dressed and washed up, and play for a few minutes before we’re off.
This morning, for what ever reason, he woke up about 20 minutes earlier than usual just as I was about to start packing his lunch. This gave him the opportunity to have a say in what went into his lunch, and he loved helping out. Plus, it made the job easier on me. This is how I did it.
First, I asked if he wanted to help get his lunch together, and he enthusiastically answered, “Yes!” I told him he needed a protein, a grain, and some veggies and/or fruit. For the protein, I gave him some available options: egg, turkey, or cheese. He chose an egg, and I decided to scramble it with some veg.
For a grain, I asked if he would rather have bread, crackers, or pretzels. He chose bread, so I asked him if he wanted anything on it. He said peanut butter and fruit spread, but since peanuts aren’t allowed at his school, I suggested cream cheese or almond butter. He chose cream cheese. (After the sandwich triangles were made, he wanted to try one. He ended up eating two of them while we were packing.)
Next were veggies. He opened the fridge and got out the celery and broccoflower completely on his own (he ate broccoflower while we packed, too–hooray!). I asked if he wanted hummus for dipping the veg, and he said yes.
When I asked what fruit he wanted to bring, he said, “None.” Since he had so many veggies packed already and a little fruit spread on his sandwich (made with all fruit and no added sugar), I didn’t have a problem with a fruitless lunch.
We set the lunch up for the photo, and Jackson said, “Oh, I can’t wait to eat lunch today!” That’s what I want to hear–excitement about eating a healthy lunch. When I picked him up from school and asked how lunch was, he said, “Very yummy and I ate everything!” And he had.
I definitely believe when kids are involved in food prep they’re more likely to eat. Maybe next time we have beets for dinner, I’ll get Jackson to help in fixing them. Maybe then he’ll eat them instead of clamping his lips together, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head “no” when I ask him to give them a try. Somehow, I don’t think it’ll work out quite the same way with beets.
Here’s my hummus recipe:
1 small garlic clove
1 can low-sodium garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup tahini (sesame paste)
juice of half a lemon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. Tabasco sauce
water
With the motor running, drop garlic clove into the bowl of a food processor to finely chop. Stop the motor, remove the lid and add beans, tahini, lemon juice, salt, and Tabasco. Replace the lid and turn the motor back on. While the ingredients whir around, slowly add some water a tablespoon at a time until the hummus reaches a creamy consistency (I use about 3 Tbsp. of water, but it’s really personal preference depending on how thick or thin you like your hummus). Taste for seasoning.
I use hummus as a dip for veg, crackers, or pita chips. It’s also great on sandwiches or added to a vinaigrette to give it body and creaminess. Yum! Jackson (and most everyone else I know) loves it.
I cut a grilled cheese sandwich into strips to make "dippers" for Jackson to dip into his soup.
December 21, 2009
It’s said that variety is the spice of life, and I’ve come to realize how important variety is to Jackson. What he adores and gobbles down today, he likely won’t want tomorrow. But give him a week or two, and he’ll gobble it down once more. Learning how important variety is to Jackson took some time for me.
I guess I’m sort of a creature of habit. I eat exactly the same thing every single day for breakfast—plain shredded wheat cereal with milk, one banana, and a pear. I don’t get bored with it. In fact, I love it and look forward to it every morning. If we’re out of milk or don’t have pears, my whole day feels off balance, and I feel like I’ve missed something. Adam is similar—he’s a steel-cut oats and banana kind of guy.
Jackson is completely different. He has to eat something different every morning. One morning he’ll ask for pancakes; the next morning I’ll offer pancakes only to hear, “Naw, I want an egg.”
His need for variety is both challenging and refreshing. Some mornings I would like nothing better than to mindlessly prepare his breakfast, but I can’t do that since it’s got to be something different everyday. On the other hand, though, I appreciate having a child who likes to mix things up a bit. It can be fun!
The same is true for lunch. Most of us mix things up day to day for lunch. We rarely eat the same thing day after day for our midday meal. The need for variety is yet another reason why I pack Jackson’s lunch. He has school three days this week and three days next week because of the holidays. On four of those six days, school lunch is a meat and cheese sandwich—turkey and cheese twice, and ham and cheese twice. Both Jackson and I believe ham or turkey and cheese sandwiches are perfectly fine, but Jackson wouldn’t be happy eating them for four out of six days. He prefers more variety than that, and I’m happy to provide it.
Rice and Veggie Salad with Raw Stuffed Mushroom Caps
December 16, 2009
While finger-food and bite-sized pieces are gimmicky, they seem to make healthy eating more fun for Jackson.
December 7, 2009
We see gimmicks everywhere—toys included in boxed cereals, buy-one-get-one-free offers, napkins folded like swans, or cakes made to look like the Eiffel Tower. Gimmicks are used to make otherwise blah items seem more interesting or appealing. Chances are, even you fall for certain gimmicks, and certainly children do, too.
Children, in all their innocence, often can’t help but be drawn in to these seemingly fantastic deals. As a kid, I hated a popular caramel popcorn treat that came in a colorful box, but I loved, loved, loved the prize that was inside! You know the one I’m talking about. As a result, I begged for that caramel popcorn even though I despised eating it.
Gimmicks are appealing to kids, so I unapologetically use them in Jackson’s lunches! For example, he can’t pass up grocery store samples, so I often cut his food into bite-size pieces or finger-food portions. Also, if he can dip it, he’s more likely to eat it; it’s like playing with his food. So, I tend to pack a lot of dippables (hummus and red pepper dips are two of the most requested). And I’m always on the lookout for fun ways of presenting his food in his lunch containers. One of my favorites is a set of pinwheel-topped wooden skewers (I clip off the pokey end) that I found in the cocktail section of a specialty homewares store. They make even the most common food item seem fancy and fun! And fancy and fun are good when it comes to getting my child to eat. Just be sure, though, to exercise caution when it comes to things like pokey pieces of wood in the lunch!
Gimmicks can be both annoying and irresistible for us adults, but I really believe you can use them to your advantage. According to this article and many others like it, food presentation is as important as taste. In other words, making everyday food items visually appealing makes people want to eat them. Isn’t that a gimmick we all, adults and children alike, fall for?
Roast Beef Sandwich "Sushi"
December 1, 2009
Maybe you’re wondering why I go to the effort of packing a lunch for Jackson everyday when he could get a perfectly fine lunch at school. I guess the number one reason for me is that I don’t believe the school lunches are perfectly fine.
I’m typically the one in charge of feeding my family. I plan our meals, do the grocery shopping, and prepare the food we eat. Also, as I mentioned before, I’m passionate about healthy food; therefore, the food I feed my family tends to be whole food based—minimal processed foods, limited artificial flavors and colors, and so on.
I guess I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to food, but I have no control over the food that’s served at school.
I take pride in knowing that what my family eats is wholesome, and I try to make it as yummy as I can. I put a lot of time and effort into food planning because I want my family to be healthy. I can’t just let my efforts go to waste by allowing Jackson to eat food on a daily basis that I know nothing about. I put a lot of effort into making sure my family has a healthy diet, so why would I let my efforts be for nothing by allowing Jackson to eat something potentially not as healthy every single day?
Packing a wholesome lunch—one in which I’ve put thought into, one which is filled with real food not additives—makes sense to me and is important to me. To me. I know not everyone feels the same way I do, and I’m certainly not going to judge anyone for having their children eat school lunches. In fact, I’m certain school lunches are far healthier than many other things kids eat or could eat, but, like I said, I’m a food control freak.
I like everything surrounding the lunch packing. I love the planning and coming up with new ideas. I love finding new ideas and trying them out. I love the actual food prep. I love it that Jackson tells me the lunches I make are way better than the school lunches (yes, he’s eaten school lunch many times; we all have crazy mornings when there’s no way a lunch is going to be prepared!). And, of course, I love that I have control over what he’s eating.
I know I won’t always be able to dictate his diet, but I’m hoping that by doing it now, I’ll give him a solid base for making good food choices when he’s able to make those choices on his own.
So, why do I pack Jackson’s lunch? Because I care about him and the food he eats. Because I want to. And because I enjoy doing it.
