Food
10 Healthy Lunches Kids Will Actually Want To Eat
With school starting up, it’s time to get creative and push your lunch box prowess to the next level. Your kids won’t even realise they’re eating healthy stuff!
When you picture a typical kid’s school lunch, what do you see? A sad, smashed sandwich? A bruised apple and a few carrot sticks? In the time of Instagram, those boring lunches are a thing of the past – and creative meals are the future!
The best way to convince your kids to eat healthy is to make their lunches fun and varied. That might sound like a challenge for time-pressed parents, but we’re completely convinced that anyone is capable of sending their kids to school with a nutritional lunch that they’ll actually enjoy eating – all it takes is a few starter ideas. Grab some inspiration from these 10 yummy meals created by some of Instagram’s most-followed foodie parents.
The Colourful Lunch
This Australian dad does his best to create healthy meals for his kiddies every day. This particular meal earned extra points for its creative pita pocket boats, whose passengers include carrots, cheese, corn and cucumber. The more variegated your fresh produce, the more varied and balanced your kid’s healthy diet will be.
The Sneaky Veggies Lunch
Every parent knows that the trick to getting kids to eat veggies is to either make them more exciting or hide them in something yummy. With this lunch box meal from Instagrammer Lunch for Littles, you can utilise both tactics: carrots always taste better when they’re shaped like hearts, while turkey and cheddar help disguise the nutritious spinach hiding in those wraps.
The Double Trouble Lunch
This busy mom of multiple boys knows that cooking/baking/throwing together the main course for her kids’ lunches needs to be something she can create in bulk. If you have lots of kids and can’t bring yourself to make a dozen different sandwiches every morning, try baking these cocoa zucchini muffins the night before so they’re ready to pop into lunch boxes the next morning. Nutritious and delicious.
The Picky-Proof Lunch
Weelicious is the creation of one of the most popular foodie moms on Instagram, and for good reason. Her lunch ideas are always unique, picky-proof and healthy to boot. This particular lunch is especially exciting with its ball-shaped melons, sushi-shaped sandwiches and natural fruit rolls. Every single element of this meal is fun (and easy to make)!
The Overly Ambitious Art Lunch
Most of us probably aren’t creative enough to even come close to the artistic masterpieces that Little Miss Bento dreams up, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try. This Winnie the Pooh spaghetti is adorable and possibly even doable for the rest of us would-be lunch makers.
The Something Different Lunch
Alice Choi is the Hip Foodie Mom constantly sharing recipes that the whole family can dig into. Her “back to school”-inspired lunch might not seem kid-friendly, but her little ones love those tuna veggie rolls. Something new and different might be just what your own kids are after.
The Meat-Free Lunch
Katie Morford has taken up the motto “Raising fresh-food kids in a French-fried world,” and judging by her Instagram account, she lives by it. This meat-free meal with mini frittatas and whole-grain “kitchen sink” cookies will have any kid’s mouth watering.
The Wacky Themed Lunch
Do you like getting goofy with food to coax your kids into eating it? The Lunchbox Queen has earned her crown with tons of themed lunch boxes. This dinosaur-inspired meal only requires a sandwich cutter and some cool dino eggs (aka kiwi, grapes and an actual egg with markered-in spots).
The Hearty Lunch
Boats are cool, and this foodie dad knows it. His Sausage and Zucchini Boats make a delicious addition to any lunch (or dinner for that matter). Take that, boring old PB&J sandwich!
The Plant-Based Lunch
This health-minded parent focuses on making plant-based meals for their child, a healthy option that more and more parents are choosing. This particular lunch includes some yummy-looking steamed veggie dumplings with fresh fruit on the side. Eating animal-free meals – even if you aren’t raising your kids vegan or vegetarian – is a great way to help keep a varied, balanced diet.
Article by Gail Wilcoxen
[Photo at top: Weelicious, Teaser photo: The Lunchbox Queen]
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