NEWS ARTICLE

For: September Issue

To: Gulf Coast Womens News

By: Linda K. Bowman, Ext. Agt. IV - Family & Consumer Sciences

Santa Rosa County Extension Service

Telephone: 850/623-3868 or 939-1259, ext. 1360

Back to School: Lunchbox Makeovers

Nine Tips for Packing a Healthy Lunch for Kids

It’s back-to-school time and for many, that means back-to-packing-lunch time.

“Unfortunately, many lunchboxes are overloaded with fat, sugar and salt and are missing fruit, vegetables and whole grains,” said Margo Wootan, senior scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). “But since a handful of foods do most of the damage to children’s diets and health, a handful of changes can go a long way toward improving them.”

What’s in a child’s lunch is important because it’s in childhood that eating habits are formed and heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis and other diseases begin to develop. Fatty build-ups — the beginnings of clogged arteries — are seen in the arteries of children as young as ten years old. Obesity rates in children have doubled in the last decade.

CSPI suggests nine easy tips to give your child’s lunchbox (or your lunch) a nutrition makeover:

1. Encourage your child to choose 1% or fat-free milk. “Milk is by far the largest source of saturated fat in children’s diets,” said Wootan. “Choosing 1% or fat-free milk instead of whole or 2% milk is an important strategy for keeping children’s hearts healthy and arteries clear.”

2. Leave the cheese off sandwiches, unless it’s low-fat or fat-free cheese. Though cheese provides calcium, it is the second leading source of artery-clogging saturated fat in kids’ diets. Healthier sources of calcium include lower-fat cheese, fat-free and 1% milk, low-fat yogurt and calcium-fortified orange juice.

3. Switch from ham, bologna, salami, pastrami or corned beef, and other fatty luncheon meats to low-fat alternatives. Wootan noted that supermarkets sell many good tasting, low-fat or fat-free brands of turkey breast, chicken breast, ham, bologna and roast beef.

4. Include at least one serving of fruit in every lunch. Try buying a few new types of fruit each week to let your child discover new favorites and to give her more chilies. In addition to apples, oranges or bananas, try pears, sliced melon, cups of applesauce, grapes or pineapple (fresh or canned in its own juice). Try serving fruit in different ways -- whole, cut into slices, cubed or with a yogurt dipping sauce.

5. Sneak vegetables — like lettuce or slices of cucumber, tomato, green pepper, roasted peppers, zucchini or sweet onion — onto sandwiches. Eating fruits and vegetables reduces your child’s chances of heart disease, cancer, blindness and stroke later in life.

6. Use whole grain bread instead of white bread for sandwiches. Choose breads that list “whole wheat” as the first ingredient. If the main flour listed on the label is “wheat” or “unbleached wheat flour,” the product is not whole grain. Most multi-grain, rye, oatmeal and pumpernickel breads in the U.S. are not whole grain.

7. Limit cookies, snack cakes, doughnuts, brownies and other sweet baked goods. Sweet baked goods are the second leading source of sugar and the fourth leading source of saturated fat in Americans’ diets.

8. If you pack juice, make sure it’s 100% juice. All fruit drinks are required to list the “% juice” on the label. “Watch out for juice drinks like Sunny Delight, Hi-C, Fruitopia and Capri Sun. With no more than 10% juice, they’re soft drinks masquerading as juice.”

9. Don’t send Lunchables. Oscar Mayer’s Lunchables that come with a treat and a drink get two-thirds of their calories from fat and sugar. Making your own healthy alternative is as easy as packing low-fat crackers, low-fat lunch meat, a piece of fruit and a box of 100% juice in your child’s lunch box (at the very least, use the lower-fat Lunchables).

For further information contact: Linda Bowman, Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent, The University of Florida--Santa Rosa County Cooperative Extension Service--IFAS, at (850)623-3868 or (850)939-1259, Ext. 1360 for south county residents, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Hearing-impaired individuals may call Santa Rosa County Emergency Management Service at 983-5373 (TDD).

Extension Service programs are open to all people without regard to race, color, sex, age, handicap or national origin. The use of trade names in this article is solely for the purpose of providing specific information. It is not a guarantee, warranty, or endorsement of the product name(s) and does not signify that they are approved to the

exclusion of others.