Product Description

According to the Government's nutritional standards, a child's lunch should contain at least one portion each of fruit and veg, protein (meat or alternative), dairy products and starchy food, such as bread or pasta. But a survey by the Food Standards Agency found that nine out of ten children still take packed lunches to school that contain too much saturated fat, sugar and salt. The Healthy Lunchbox is full of suggestions and ideas to help you provide your child with an appetizing and appealing meal each day. It will explain why many lunchboxes are unhealthy. What a healthy lunch should consist of. What children and adults of different ages should have (size of portions etc). Seasonality. Variety. Encouraging children to experiment. Personalising your lunchbox and making your lunchbox special. How to adapt your lunchbox for different age groups. How to get over children's fears of being different. Dealing with the reluctant/fussy eater and the overweight. Dealing with pester power. How to get kids involved in making their own. What children from other countries take to school. Lunchbox notes. Fiona Beckett provides recipes and menu suggestions and gives her Top Ten lunchboxes (or 12, depending on book size). These are categorised by age (e.g. very small children (4-6)/teenagers), inclination (veggie/non-dairy, wheat-free), time - or lack of it (hard pushed parent with several boxes to make), budget (low cost lunch box), food politics (organic/Fairtrade lunch boxes) or ethnicity (tiffin box/bento box). Finally how to plan a week's meals on the basis of one or two shopping expeditions, and a table with a month's suggestions for lunch boxes, as well as food safety and food hygiene.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82044 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

Yorkshire Post, 21st September 2005
Includes information about children's daily dietry needs and what a healthy packed lunch should include as well as inspiration recipes.

The Daily Telegraph
Strong on ideas, very easy to follow and, most important of all, realistic, with advice for hard-pressed working parents.

About the Author
Fiona Becket is a regular contributor to Sainsbury's Magazine and the Financial Times. She is an award-winning food writer who was the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Award and the Lanson Awards in 2004. She has written many successful books the most recent being Beyond Baked Beans: Real Food for Students.

Customer Reviews

If you have kids - get this!
I have 2 young children and, like most parents, I want what's best for them, especially as far as their diet's concerned. With all the recent media interest in school dinners this couldn't have come at a more apt time.

I can't recommend this book enough. The design is perfect for both parents and children alike; big, bright and full of scrummy pictures. If, like my children, yours suffer from certain allergies - fear not - this book caters for literally every child, no matter how fussy they are. This book really sets the trend! Recommended.

Not rocket science but useful
I bought this because my daughter's due to start school in September and I wanted ideas to make her lunches less boring. This did give some useful recipes and some good ideas but it wasn't as good as I had been hoping to be honest. She divides the book up into "types" of lunch and some I found a bit silly - eg the "green" lunchbox she advised using a Fairtrade banana or cereal bar - like we wouldn't have thought of that! Her style is a lot less patronising than Annabel Karmel though and she doesn't expect you to cook all hours to create the lunchbox; I do think it is the sort of book that can be useful for all ages of child. I think maybe I expected too much and maybe lunches can never be that exciting.....!

Realistic and inspiring
I have found this book really helpful for ideas for my 5yr old and I can see the potential for even more as she gets older and her tastes change. The Headteacher has even commented on her lunch box being so healthy and interesting looking!