It’s back to school time! It is very important to encourage healthy eating habits for your children early on so they can learn to make the right food choices of themselves as they grow up. After all, one day they’ll have to make their own sandwiches and salads…but that might not be for years to come. So start with one of their most important meals of the day; in this case it is lunch since breakfast can be a hurried affair during school days.

• Make a weekly menu for what to pack and even create some lunches ahead of time. Wrap and refrigerate sandwiches or pre-baked chicken fingers. Slice up appropriate lunchtime portions and save them for the rest of the week so you spend less time putting lunch together in the mornings. These lunchtime recipes will be real hit at the lunch table!
• Don’t forget the sweets and snacks! Tasty desserts like low-fat yogurt, caramel dipped apples, or even home-baked goodies are much better than most of the sugary explosion found in most vending machines.
• Finish up with packing their lunches in a fun, reusable box. Boring and messy brown paper bags are so out of fashion. Bento boxes, laptop lunches, and even vintage lunch boxes are all the rage these days!