Author: Karen Totterdell

Welcome to Little Apples

Packed Lunch Guidance

We encourage families to provide a packed lunch that supports a nutritious balanced diet. This supports our healthy lifestyles education and helps the children develop healthy eating habits that will provide the best foundation for life.
The Lunch Box
Apologies for starting with the basics. A small inexpensive plastic box is perfectly acceptable. Please check that your child can open the box easily. Don’t forget to label the box with your child’s name on the outside.
Keeping it cool
Although we store the lunch boxes in a cool place out of direct sunlight we cannot refrigerate them. So a small freezer pack is a good idea, especially in the summer.

A packed lunch should contain:
1 portion of vegetables or salad
1 portion of fruit
1 portion of milk or dairy products
1 portion of protein e.g. meat, chicken or fish
1 portion of starchy food (complex carbohydrate)
Lots of foods cover more than one food group. For example a small wholemeal roll filled with ham and cucumber would cover vegetable, protein and starchy food.
What is a portion?
A good guide is: “What will fit into a cupped hand”. How many grapes will fit into your child’s cupped hand? That’s a portion for someone their size.
Please remember NOT to include ANY NUTS or NUT PRODUCTS.

Food Group	Foods
Vegetables or Salad	Carrot sticks, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, celery sticks, pepper sticks, broccoli, sweet corn
Fruit	Fresh, dried or tinned (in natural juice) fruits are all good.
Milk or Dairy	Cheese, fromage frais, yoghurt, milkshake drink.
Chicken/Meat or other source of protein	Ham, chicken, cheese, tuna, low fat sausage, beans, chickpeas.
Starchy Food	Bread, rice, pasta, pitta bread, bagel, crackers, wraps
Treat	2 jaffa cakes, slice of malt loaf, a few iced gems, flapjacks, carrot cake, small fruit bun.

Important Guidelines
Please remember we have a no nut rule at Little Apples and this includes lunch boxes. If nut products are bought in, they cannot be eaten.
Grapes, mini sausages, cherry tomatoes must all be sliced in half length ways, please.
Keep it small; remember a portion is the size of your child’s cupped hand.
Can your child open it by themselves? E.g. yoghurt pots, cheese, Oranges. PLEASE avoid tube yoghurts e.g. Frubes
Variety. Try different fruit, bread, and vegetables.
One small treat only.
Gradual change is best. It can take up to 20 tastes for a child to get used to a new food, so keep trying!!
If you can, prepare the packed lunch together.
You can often use up left overs e.g. cold pasta or rice could make a salad, cold pizza is good too
Children struggle with too many choices, please limit the number of items in the box.
Hidden sugars, fat or salt
Check nutritional information to avoid these.
These are often present in:
Fruit winders
Smoothies
Processed meat snacks
Fruit gummies
Crisps
Please ask if you need any help or advice.

Some Lunch Box Ideas
Lunch box 1 “Quick”
Small pitta filled with chicken and cucumber
Cereal bar (NO NUTS), Clementine or Satsuma
Small Yoghurt drink
Lunch box 2 “No food in – what’s at the One Stop”
1 small wholemeal roll thinly spread with butter of olive spread
1 Baby Bel cheese or Cheese String
Apple slices and raisins
1 Packet Walkers Baked crisps
Lunch box 3 “lets makes something”
Hummus and grated carrot sandwiches cut into shapes with a biscuit cutter
Raspberry jelly with raspberries. Don’t forget the spoon!
Make up a sugar free jelly. In small pots add 5/6 frozen raspberries, pour on the jelly. Put in the fridge to set.
Small pot of fromage frais (Tube yoghurts are not a good idea)
Lunch box 4 “Left overs”
Small slice of Ham and Pineapple pizza
Cold sweetcorn
Small pot of yoghurt – don’t forget the spoon!
Small portion of fruit

For advice about your child’s diet, weight or nutrition, please speak to staff or your health visitor. Further advice can be found here: Advice for parents of healthy-weight children - NHS https://www.hampshirehealthyfamilies.org.uk/

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