Eat Right: Fuel your kids’ health with lunchtime advantage

It has been found that most school-goers skip eating a healthy breakfast. And even during the school break, their meals mostly comprise chips, chocolates, leftover food from a dinner eaten out like pizza, and maybe an apple. This hardly makes for healthy eating, especially for students.

Hence, parents must ensure that they give their kids a healthy and nutritious meal when they are back home. Eating a nutritious lunch is of utmost importance for school students as it plays a vital role in their overall health, growth, and academic performance. Proper nutrition supports brain development and function.

Nutrient-rich foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins, provide essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins that are crucial for cognitive abilities, memory, and overall brain health. A well-nourished brain is more receptive to learning and retaining information.

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“Once the children are back home, it is necessary to supplement the nutrients that he/she has missed for the day by making lunch a meal where the child can make up for a healthy meal. Since the kid is a fussy eater, it is important to incorporate dishes that he/she likes”

–Nalini Malik, a Home Science teacher at Apeejay School, Saket

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“Once the children are back home, it is necessary to supplement the nutrients that he/she has missed for the day by making lunch a meal where the child can make up for a healthy meal. Since the kid is a fussy eater, it is important to incorporate dishes that he/she likes. If you want to make them eat dishes that they don’t like, it can be incorporated in a manner that the children will eat,” Nalini Malik, a Home Science teacher at Apeejay School, Saket said.

Let’s take an example. Almost all kids hate to eat bottle gourd (lauki). The parent can make kofta from it and put it in the curry and serve it with poori. The parent can even make kheer from lauki. Kids love sweets and kheer is a perfect way to feed your child this vegetable. Add some nuts like cashews and almonds; you can even add fox nuts and you have a perfectly healthy and nutritious dessert.

Spinach is another vegetable that is full of nutrients and vitamins — it has vitamin C and potassium. A perfect dish would be palak paneer which all kids love. The dish has protein, iron, and calcium – making it a perfect lunch dish.

But if you are short of ideas on how to plan a nutritious lunch plan for your child, Malik has the perfect diet chart for the entire week.

Day 1: A vegetable meal is a great way to kick-start the week. Serve the food in a thali with katoris lined up; it will make the food look attractive and the child will want to eat what the parent has served. A thali should have katori of — dal, raita made from cucumber, bhindi/palak paneer/lauki kofta/gobhi aloo. If the family is non-vegetarian and the child has not eaten eggs for breakfast, egg curry is a great dish. Add papad, chutney, and sprout salad and you have beautiful thali ready for your child.

Day 2: Kids love combos like rajma-chawal, chana-chawal, and kadhi-chawal. Both rajma and channa are high in calcium, potassium, iron, and zinc. Kadhi is helpful as it is rich in nutrients that help soothe the digestive system and also help control dehydration. To make it nutritious, you can make pakoras with veggies.

Day 3: It is also important to treat your child from time to time. And the perfect dish to serve up is paneer tikka. Prepare a marinade with curd and spices like chili powder, a pinch of turmeric, some dhania powder, and salt to taste. Cut large cubes of paneer. Cut capsicum – red, green, yellow, onions, and tomatoes of the same size. Mix paneer, veggies, and the marinade and leave it in the fridge for a few hours. If you don’t have a gas tandoor fret not. This can be made easily in a frying pan as well. Serve with chutney and roti.

Day 4: Kids love parantha and poori. A perfect lunch meal can be aloo bhaji with poori or even pumpkin veggie with poori. If you eat eggs, make egg bhuji and serve it with poori.

 Day 5: Paranthas stuffed with veggies and or aloo are a perfect lunch meal. Serve it with a cucumber raita. One can even make spinach/beetroot/methi paranthas. You can even make a pizza parantha. Take sweetcorn, finely chop capsicum, and some onions. Add some cheese and mix this. Stuff this filling in a parantha and voila you have a meal that is healthy, nutritious, and yet tasty which the children will relish.

Day 6: Who doesn’t like pasta? Treat your child to homemade pasta with lots of veggies like carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms. You can make the sauce at home instead of buying readymade from the market.

“Sunday is usually spent with the family and you can involve the child in meal planning. Channa bhature, pav bhaji, idli-vada, and uttapam with sambhar and chutney are great options. When children are involved in meal planning, they take ownership of the meal and would want to eat it as well,” Malik opined. She also said that good nutrition positively impacts academic performance.

“Students who regularly consume a balanced lunch have been shown to have better grades, improved test scores, and higher levels of concentration and alertness. A healthy lunch can boost productivity and enable students to fully engage in classroom activities, leading to better overall academic achievements,” Malik said in conclusion.