Packing healthy lunches kids will love

Most kids love berries! (public domain photo)

Packing healthy lunches for kids is essential for their well-being. The hard part is getting them to eat healthy items. It's a challenge to find healthy lunches that appeal to kids taste buds. I remember my kids telling me, after they had grown, that they never ate the healthy items I packed in their lunches. How sad to think of all those poor neglected apples! With the grand-kids, I try to come up with healthy lunch choices that please us both.

A good way to encourage kids to eat healthy fruits and vegetables in their lunches is to give them something yummy to dip them in. Apples and bananas are great dipped in peanut butter. Veggies can be dipped in guacamole.

Kids have different tastes. Find out their favorites. Prepare their lunch accordingly. It isn't healthy if they don't eat it.

In place of chips, try a pickle or some plain salted popcorn. All three are crunchy and salty The chips contain a lot of fat. Experiment with different spices on the popcorn. Another good crunchy, salty item for kids lunches is pretzels.

In place of gooey, calorie laden desserts, pack berries in their lunch. Berries are healthy, it's true. However, kids still love them!

Avoid soft drinks. Try healthy juice in kids lunches instead. It'll save money if made from concentrate. Pack a curly straw. Kids love them. They make drinking fun. Make sure the juice is 100% juice with no added sugar or other ingredients.

Prepared foods are generally not as healthy as homemade. "Lunchables" contain a lot of fat and sugar. They may seem cheap but cost more in doctor bills and bad health. Instead, pack whole grain crackers with fun, healthy spreads like almond butter.

Skip the leftovers in kids healthy lunches unless it's something really spectacularly yummy that a kid would love. Kids feel the same way about leftovers we do. That's why they're still in the fridge.

Some kids shun wheat bread like the plague. If you want to pack whole grain bread in their lunches, try one of the new varieties that looks and tastes like white bread but is actually whole grain. They even sell it in a store brand. It won't cost a fortune to accommodate their tastes.

Portions of this post were previously published by this author on a closed Yahoo! property.