How do I get my kids to eat well?  The answer is to offer them and stock the kitchen with only healthy food.  At least while they are within your domain, you have a bit of control over what they eat.  The bonus to this approach is that everyone else living in the household benefits  - you also are happily trapped into making healthy eating choices.  What happens to your child's diet outside your doorstep is honestly out of your control and coming to terms with this (at least for me) is somewhat comforting.  What children eat is important for reasons beyond maintaining physical health.  It will help with proper growth and development, mood, focus and cognition - the alternative (i.e. sugary foods) lead to distraction and sleepiness.

So, school lunches are slightly out of the control of parents seeing as once the kid(s) are out the door, whether that carefully prepared lunch will be eaten, discarded or traded is junior's decision.  My sweet mama did her best to pack me and my siblings healthy lunches.  Tuna fish on whole wheat bread, accompanied by fully oxidized, brown apple slices and a thermos of room temperature milk were frequently served - and often traded for Jiffy and Smuckers or mystery meat sandwiches, chips, candy and Kool-Aid.  As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.  To this day, I wonder if those kids who agreed to trade with me and my siblings were intrigued by our lunches or simply felt sorry for us.  In any case, offering up healthy AND delicious lunches could solve this problem.  In my personal experience with my daughter, it totally has.  In fact, she's often reported that her friends often want to try her lunches and friends' parents regularly ask me for recipes.   When thinking of packed lunches, my first line of defense are leftovers.  Whenever possible, that's what I serve up!  Otherwise, I've poked around the internet and have put to the test what seems like hundreds of lunch box recipes.  Below are some of our tasty lunch ideas with links and recipes.  

I am always looking to expand my lunch box repertoire.  What are some of your favorites?

MAINS

1. Prosciutto wrapped mini frittata muffins (pictured above)

2. Vietnamese Mini Meat Balls (*recipe below)

3. Lettuce Wrapped Chicken Tacos - Wrap left over chicken in butterhead lettuce with sliced avocado or guacamole, shredded carrots, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese or whatever you choose.  Serve with a side of sour cream for dipping.

4. Prosciutto Wrapped Avocado Slices - Wrap sliced avocado in slices of prosciutto.  Secure the wrap by tying a chive around it.

5. Smoked Salmon, Avocado Nori Rolls with Cauliflower Rice (or rice of choice) - Spread rice of choice on a sheet of nori.  Top with smoked salmon and avocado.  Sliced cucumbers work well too.  Roll and cut into bite sized pieces.  Note, if using cauliflower rice, you may need to add a bit of cream cheese to help bind it together.

6. Hardboiled eggs or if you have more time, deviled eggs.  

7. Egg Salad

8. Shaker Salads

9.  Spanish Tortilla Squares

10. Sausage Patties

11. Grass Fed Uncured Pepperoni Sticks

12.  Soups - Broccoli Cheddar, Cauliflower, Creamy Tomato - add shredded chicken, pork or hard boiled eggs for added protein.  This is a great, leakproof container that will keep your liquids warm (or cold) for hours.  

SIDES

1. Cut veggies:  carrots, celery, fennel, broccoli, baby bok choy, cucumber, mini peppers, cherry/grape tomatoes

2. Homemade chia bars (*recipe below)

3. Homemade chia pudding

4. Seasonal Fruit (berries, orange wedges, small whole apples, or sliced - squeeze lemon juice if to prevent browning )

5. Olives

6. Pickles

7. Homemade crackers

8. Dark Chocolate

DIPS

1. Hummus

2. Tzatziki

3. Cottage Cheese

4. Plain, whole milk yogurt.  Add berries for variety.

5. Homemade chocolate pudding

6. Seasnax

BEVERAGES

1. Filtered water 

2. Herbal iced teas, unsweetened

3. Homemade Strawberry Hemp Milk (or milk of choice: almond, cashew, coconut) (*recipe below)

4. Warm Golden Milk

Thai Mini Meatball Recipe, serves 4

• 1 pound ground pork sausage or links (casing removed)
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons Coconut Aminos
• 2 tablespoons Red Boat fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey

1. Season the pork with salt and pepper and then roll into mini meatballs (or whatever size you choose), place each meatball on a tray as you work. In a small bowl, combine the sesame oil, coconut aminos, fish sauce and honey.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and cook the meatballs until cooked through, about 5 minutes, turning them 2-3 times throughout cooking. During the last minute or so of cooking, add the sauce and give the meatballs a good toss through the sauce. Cook another minute longer you until the sauce glazes the meatballs. Remove from the heat.

Serve with Basil and Cilantro Yogurt Dipping Sauce

• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• 3/4 cups greek yogurt
• fresh squeezed lime juice

1. Add the cilantro, basil, yogurt and lime juice to a blender or food processor. Blend until completely smooth and creamy. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste.

Turmeric & Black Pepper Pumpkin Seed Chia Bar

• 6 large Medjool dates
• ½ cup chia seeds
• ¼ cup sprouted pumpkin seeds
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• 1 tablespoon turmeric powder
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Remove pits from dates and pulse in a food processor or blender to form a paste.
2. In a medium sized bowl, mix dates and the rest of the ingredients.
3. Press into the bottom of a baking dish lined with parchment paper, cut into squares or rectangles and refrigerate until firm.

*Variations: Roll into bite sized balls instead of making bars, omit turmeric and black pepper for a “plain” bar, add coconut flakes and/or dark chocolate chips & top with flakey sea salt such as Maldon.

Banana Walnut Chia Bar

• 3 dates
• ¾ cup dried bananas
• ½ cup walnuts
• ½ cup chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt

1. Remove pits from dates and pulse in a food processor or blender to form a paste.
2. In a medium sized bowl, mix dates and the rest of the ingredients.
3. Press into the bottom of a baking dish lined with parchment paper, cut into squares or rectangles and refrigerate until firm.

Homemade Strawberry Hemp Milk (serves 2)

• ½ cup hemp seeds (organic, hulled seeds)
• 4 cups water
• 10-15 hulled strawberries
• 1 pitted date (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

1. Blend hemp seeds in water until smooth. 
2. Add strawberries and blend again.
3. Strain the pulp from the hemp milk if desired.
4. Refrigerate. Hemp milk will be good for 5 days.

(Full disclosure:  There are some affiliates links above.  While we make a little bit of money if you make a purchase using our links, it is at no extra cost to you.  Rest assured, we honestly wouldn't be recommending them if we didn't believe in them)!

We've often mentioned micronutrients and eating nutrient dense foods on the blog, but what exactly are we talking about?  Let's start with the small stuff.  

Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals and antioxidants not produced in the body and derived from food.  They are needed in small amounts, but are nonetheless  are vital to development and disease prevention and contribute to functions such as DNA repair, slowing of oxidative damage, protection against infection, energy generation, nervous system balancing and bone mineralization.  Every system in the body depends on micronutrients to thrive.  According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), over 2 billion people worldwide, including 1/2 of the children up to age 5, are deficient in at least one micronutrient.  Examples of micronutrients include calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, folate, vitamins A, D and K, zinc, and a whole suite of B vitamins - biotin, niacin, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamin.  Below is a list of micronutrients and their specific functions in the body, taken from the book, Paleo Takes Five - or -  Fewer, by Cindy Sexton.  

Now what about nutrient density?  Very loosely, nutrient density is a term referring to the amount of nutrients packed in a food by volume.  Certain foods such as organ meats and oysters are so jam packed with nutrients, a single serving once a week will supply the body with all the nutrients it needs.   When thinking about which foods to include in your regular meal rotation, it's important to keep this in mind.  What foods give you the biggest bang for the buck?  Aside from organ meats and oysters, herbs and spices, nuts and seeds, cacao, fish and seafood, grass-fed beef, lamb, veal and wild game, vegetables, pork, pastured eggs and dairy (especially grass-fed butter), pastured poultry are at the top of the list.  

The next question is, can one overdo it?  The answer to that is yes.  Just about everything in life is dose dependent.  We increase the chances of developing a food allergy towards foods we over consume.   (The same goes for foods we don't consume enough of)!  This problem is naturally resolved for us by Mother Nature.  It is one of the reasons vegetables grow at specific times of the year and why the availability of animals for hunting and seafood for fishing varies throughout the course of a year.  We are designed to nourish ourselves accordingly, and benefit from the diverse number of nutrients each food has to offer.  Now that we have access to any food we can imagine at anytime of year, it has become easy to abuse the consumption of foods, with the push of a button.  And there, my friends, is an important argument for eating seasonally and locally.  

Having this information makes it somewhat easier to make decisions about what foods are important to have on the menu on a frequent basis.  For us, it is especially useful for feeding our daughter while we still have the ability to control what she eats to some degree.  Now that we are approaching the end of summer and she will be going back to school, you can bet we load her lunches with as many nutrient dense foods we can get in there without totally making her feel like the "weird" kid in her class.

Our next post will be specifically on that...school lunch ideas.  You won't want to miss that one!