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Healthy lunch box ideas

Lunch boxes take me back to my school days and the AMAZING lunches my mum used to pack for us whenever we had after school activities, and couldn’t eat lunch at home. When I moved out, first to study, then to live and work abroad, I adopted the all too common approach of regularly skipping breakfasts, grabbing something quick and ready-made for lunch, and ending the day with a very late, and very large dinner. But the traditional saying “breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper” is proving rather accurate, as the mounting research† in favour of intermittent fasting shows.

Frontloading your calory intake to the first half of the day reduces risk factors for heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes. People who don’t eat large meals in the latter half of the day also tend to sleep better, suffer less digestive issues and show less signs of ageing. This, and all the research I have been reading about children performing better at school, being better behaved and less prone to falling ill when they have a healthy breakfast and nutritious lunch, has convinced me to start making an effort to pack my family some decent lunches. Here are some ideas, which I put together for the team at Compass Fostering to help inspire parents to pack a punch on the lunch box front.

 

Version 2

Lunch boxes 1

Lunch box 1

Fruit water (cucumber and mint)
Tangerine
Lightly salted popcorn
Rainbow wrap
Boiled egg

Ingredients for the rainbow wrap

wholemeal wrap or flatbread
1 – 2 tablespoons hummus or red pepper hummus
small handful baby leaf spinach
1 small carrot, coarsely grated
1/4 red pepper, cut into long strips (the long Romano variety works well here)

Method
1. Spread the hummus evenly onto the wrap, leaving a border along the top end.
2. Place the spinach leaves down in a single layer, pile grated carrot into the centre and lay pepper sticks across.
3. Fold the bottom half over the fillings, ensuring you have a tight roll, then roll upward towards the top end. Cut in half or slice into thirds.

Lunch box 3

Lunch box 2

Fruit water (lemon and lime)
Pineapple wedges, raspberries
Wholemeal pesto pasta salad with salmon and peas
Natural Greek yoghurt with pumpkin seeds and raw honey

Ingredients for the pasta

medium bunch basil
small bunch dill, thickest part of stems discarded
medium bunch parsley, thickest part of stems discarded
1 small garlic clove, peeled
salt and pepper
about 80ml (1/3 cup) extra virgin olive oil
cooked salmon (left-overs work well here)
cooked wholemeal pasta (save some of the cooking liquid)
handful of frozen peas

Method

  1. Put the herbs, garlic, pinch of salt and black pepper in a food processor and blitz until roughly chopped.
  2. With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil until you reach your desired consistency (the green “pesto” sauce should be loose enough to fold into cooked pasta).
    Combine the pesto with cooked pasta, cooked salmon or deboned trout, and defrosted frozen peas.
  3. Add a little more olive oil and pasta cooking liquid if it needs it.

Lunch box 4

Lunch box 3

Fruit water (raspberries and blueberries)
Cucumber and carrot sticks with guacamole
Trail mix (sunflower seeds, coconut chips, chopped dates)
Mini frittata with broccoli and feta

Ingredients for the frittata
2 eggs
1 tablespoon water
small pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
small knob of butter
handful of steamed broccoli florets (left-overs are great for this) 25g crumbled feta

Method

  1. Whisk the eggs with the water, salt and pepper. Stir in the sliced spring onions.
  2. Heat the butter in a small ovenproof skillet or pan over a medium heat until sizzling, then pour the egg mix into the pan, and scatter over the broccoli and feta cheese.
  3. Cover the pan, turn the heat down and cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until the egg has just set.
  4. Pop the pan under a hot grill for half a minute if you’d like, to add some colour. Cool, turn out and slice to serve.

This post was written in collaboration with Compass Fostering. All opinions, words and images are my own.

Intermittent Fasting: the surprising update
Fasting: Molecular Mechanisms and Clinical Applications



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