Cheese sandwiches for lunch…again? Let Supernanny.com’s fresh ideas give you nutritious, healthy packed lunch options for choosy customers!

Tips to Spice up the Lunchbox

• Ditch the bread! Swap sliced bread sandwiches for pitta, tortilla wraps, bagels or savoury muffins. Even the same old fillings will taste better if it doesn’t look so much like a sandwich. Your kids might even be convinced by a no-bread sandwich… a.k.a. a salad!
• Go crackers! Pack some crispbread or crackers (look for wholemeal and low fat, low salt varieties) plus a filling, and let your kids put a snack together themselves – they’ll love it!
• That’s soup-er! Lots of lunchboxes now come with flasks. Make a batch of soup at the weekend and heat it up for their lunchboxes along with a hunk of wholemeal bread.
• Go chunky! Your kids will probably love eating fruit if it’s chopped up into cubes. Try chopping up sandwiches into squares too, or buy some cookie cutters and make a boring old sandwich into a car, star or Christmas tree!
• Get them involved! Get the kids involved in what goes in their lunchboxes. Give them realistic choices and praise them when they chose healthy options. If they won’t make their own, put out a range of fillings and ask them to make a mystery sandwich for Dad, and Dad can make the kids’. You could even do this the night before, so as to save time on school mornings.

A Lively Lunch Menu…

We asked some mums for their most successful lunchbox recipes and made this week-long menu with their suggestions. Try them out, and they may become your own lunchbox hits! Remember that each lunchbox should have some fresh fruit, a crunchy vegetable, a dairy product (e.g. milk, cheese, yoghurt), a protein food (e.g. meat, egg, beans) and a starchy food (e.g. bread, pasta, crackers, potatoes).

Monday

Bagel with low fat cream cheese and tinned salmon; carrot sticks; apple chunks

Tuesday

Pitta with salad and cheese; melon and nectarine cubes; cherry tomatoes

Wednesday

Pasta salad with tuna, sweetcorn and pepper; strawberries and grapes; chunks of red pepper

Thursday

Wholemeal cracker breads with slices of cheese, ham and a hummus dip; cucumber sticks; raspberries

Friday

Tortilla wrap filled with spicy bean mix, cheese and salad; low fat yoghurt; carrot and cucumber sticks.