The start of the school year is a great time for changing up our routines. Where better to start than with lunch? As we all know making a healthy lunch EVERYDAY can get boring, and let’s face it, this is one of the biggest reason we STOP bringing a healthy lunch from home and START buying junk food. It should be the other way around! So, how do we stay motivated to make and bring a healthy lunch 365 day of the year? Well we have some ideas!!!
- Make lunch EASY! Use leftovers for lunch. It’s one less meal you have to make and it’s delicious. Make sure when preparing dinner to budget enough for lunch the next day. As soon as dinner is done pack your lunch and your ready for tomorrow.
- Prepare a large batch of meals on Sunday…Maybe have all your salads ready in the fridge, a large pot of chili waiting, OR Mexican lasagna in the freezer. When you don’t have to make lunch everyday it gets a bit more exciting and there is less of a chance of the “I’ll just buy something at the food court”
- Have a backup! Always always always have some protein ready in the fridge…luncheon meats, hard boiled eggs, or allegro cheese that can be a topper to a spinach salad. You never know when your going to get home late from piano, skating or dance lessons and have no time to cook chicken or prepare a FABULOUS lunch for tomorrow.
Now that we have a few ways to help get us in the routine of making different lunches, its time to make those lunch meals as healthy as possible.
TRY…
- Adding fibre to your meals. Grains are a great way to increase fibre which help to lower cholesterol levels AND keep us feeling full longer to reduce snacking between meals
- Decreasing sodium levels. Lets face it salad dressings, cheese, and dips can be loaded with sodium. Try cutting the salt with low sodium dressings like Herbamere or using low sodium vegetable stock in your chicken stirfry.
- Variety. If you LOVE having a sandwich for lunch try using different breads to keep things interesting. We love Stone mill, Ezekiel and Weight Watchers bread (high in fibre and low carbohydrate with a GREAT taste)
Avoid…
- Sugars. Try and replace pop or diet pop with WATER, green tea, or even a smoothie
- Sweets. Replace chocolate, conventional sugar loaded snacks and cookies with fruit and yogurts
- Caffeine. Try and reduce your caffeine consumption by replacing your tea/ coffee with herbal tea or green tea. To make this an even better choice try WATER!!
We has also come up with a list of our favourite JAR meals. These JAR meals are becoming VERY popular because they are easy to make, you can add a ton of variety and they look so colorful!!