As a new school year approaches and schedules become hectic, wouldn’t it be great to have a handle on healthy meals and snacks? Getting our children to eat healthy can be challenging. It is so convenient sometimes to pull through the fast food drive through when you are tired and the children are hungry.
By planning ahead and being organized you can consistently have healthy home-cooked meals for your family not only on weekends, but week nights as well. In a previous post, I suggested that weekly menus are the solution to healthy meals and they are a way to stay organized in the kitchen.
In addition, here are some tips for preparing for healthy brown bag lunches:
- Use a cycle menu or rotate between 3 – 5 easy meals. Keep these staples on hand so you don’t have a reason to skip the brown bag and hand out lunch money instead.
- Shop in bulk for staples like juice boxes, plastic ware and other non-perishable.
- Prep vegetables right after grocery shopping and then pre-package items like cut up veggies in bags or containers.
For snack attacks try the following:
- Create a snack shelf in your pantry or cabinet and set house rules for the number of snacks each day per child. Children can then self-serve. Another idea is to use a snack jar and have children pre-select snacks for the next day.
- Have a fruit bowl on the counter.
- Save some of the pre-cut veggies for snack time. Have them and other kind approved snacks where they can be reached in the refrigerator.
- If you don’t want your children to eat it, don’t have it in the house.
The stress of packing lunch, preparing healthy meals and managing snacks for your children can be lighten with a little pre-planning, some house rules and organization.
I would love to hear your suggestions for organizing for healthy meals.
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