It's That Time of Year Again! Healthy School Lunches and Snacks for Your Kids! There's no question about it - Countless studies indicate that a well-fueled kid has a leg up in school compared to other students whose diets don't include a healthy breakfast and lunch. Want your child to make it all the way through to the middle of the day? Pack a lunch that fuels their bodies and their minds.
As families prepare for school across the country, set your mind at ease and know that while the perfect backpack and "first-day" outfits are certainly important, meal planning should rank right up there too! Food experts encourage parents to engage kids in the process. Some believe that the more involved they are, the more likely children are to be well-informed and adventurous eaters. If you're lucky, you can even get them to pack their own lunchboxes once in a while, too. While your budding students may not appreciate all of raisins' nutritious attributes, they will appreciate their great taste. Keep an eye on the number of fruit or vegetable servings your kids are eating every day. The new USDA food guidelines recommend five a day. One-fourth cup of raisins counts as one serving of fruit. Don't forget to pack a beverage. Low or no-fat milk and real fruit juices are good choices. Freeze the juice and add to the lunchbox while it is still frozen to keep most lunches cold until noon. Make those special peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or almost any sandwich from frozen bread to be sure they keep until time to eat. Check out the back-to-school friendly recipes below for some tasty inspirations. Don't worry, these recipes were purposely selected to be too precious to trade and won't be tossed. There are even more great ideas for lunches for kids of all ages at www.calraisins.org. |
That's right, for the second year in a row, the California Dancing Raisin has been nominated as one of the classic icons in the advertising industry by the American Association of Advertising in cooperation with USA Today.