Top Tips for a Happy, Healthy Lunch

Don’t forget we are trying to ensure are children are healthy and maintain good eating habits.

Here are some ideas to try:

• Include small selections of things your child likes

• It doesn’t always have to be sandwiches

• Sometimes just meat and cheese or vegetables and fruit is fine

• Try to offer variety (ham sandwiches every day can be boring) !!

• Cut crusts off too because a lot of bread can be daunting

• Try and include a mixture of savoury and sweet, crunchy and soft

• Always include fresh fruit or veg, we will cut /peel anything here to help encourage them to eat things (brown fruit is not appealing)

• If it is something new let us know so we can encourage them further

• Try to avoid high fat/salt/sugar items
  – Pepperami’s
  – Fridge raiders
  – Dunkers
  – Lunchables
  – Pies
  – Scotch/picnic eggs
  – Sausage roll

• These are all high fat and salt items with low nutritional value. These are fine every so often but home prepared food is much better as it is not processed. Made by you is always better than made by someone else.

• Sticky sweets, fizzy drinks and lollies are not allowed at nursery as we can’t clean teeth here. This is obviously is essential after high sugar items so please avoid them.

• For safety please cut grapes and sausages and similar items (lengthways) as these are a recognised choking hazard and have caused many fatalities.

• Please note that we have some severe nut allergies in nursery, please help us keep children safe by NOT including any Nut products in your children’s lunch boxes, we really appreciate  your support in this matter
• We do have books and information sheets on great lunch box ideas which we find the children like. Please ask if you would like some help with this.

  Some Ideas-for lunchboxes

  Sandwich ,bread, naan, brioche, croissant, wraps, chapatti, flat bread, bagels

  Cold meat, nuggets goujons , veggie nuggets, mozzarella sticks etc, sausages, ham, salami, chorizo, cheese, egg ,sushi, prawns

  Waffles ,wedges, fruit bread, pancakes, pizza, frittatas, fritters, falafel,

  Crisps, breadsticks , crackers, cheese straws, poppadum’s, prawn crackers, tortillas, rice cakes, pretzel, popcorn.

  Sweet or savoury muffins, quiche , wontons, spring rolls, bhaji , pakora, poori,

  Vegetables, dips , olives, pickles,

  paneer, halloumi,

  Pasta ,rice, salads, cous cous

   variety of fresh fruit

  Yoghurt, rice pudding, jelly, mousse, custard, kulfi, barfi, gulab a, etc. halva(No Nuts),

  Cake, biscuit, chocolate, flapjack cereal bar, muffins, brownie, tiffin, traybakes etc.

• Containers- With a view to reducing our use of single use plastics,
• try to use small containers , that your child can open independantly.
• lunch boxes are stored in the fridge so please consider the design/choice of lunch boxes as large boxes with elaborate designs are difficult to fit in our fridge space. 

or these with a drinks flask.

Avoid these type of boxes

Please avoid complicated boxes with assorted compartments, as these are tricky for children to open independently. We help the children ,decant their lunch onto plates and it means touching all the food whilst we try and tip out the bits we want. We have not got space (like in school to eat out of their lunch box on the table). We eat family style at the table with the children and help the children select the healthy options first, so we generate the conversation about healthy eating and other food related discussion. The children will wash their own plates afterwards.

In the Spring Term Pre-School children will start to go over to school for lunches. They will have the choice to have a packed lunch as normal or try school lunches. Whilst at nursery these cost £2.40 (but will be free when they start school.) It is a good opportunity to experienec a busy school lunch with our support and help to get them ready for the transition to school, and this busy part of the day. You can look at the menus online to see what your child may enjoy and choose what days you would like a school lunch or to stick with pack lunch. We will give you feed back on how they do, so you know if it is worth it in the future.

Primary School Menu – Whole School Meals