Alarmingly, only 6% of school lunch programs meet the requirements established by the USDA School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children.1 Suggest your clients use the new school year as an opportunity to make a healthy eating resolution and pack more nutritious lunches for themselves and their family!
Why not suggest that children be included in the meal-planning and lunch-packing process? When children are involved in the planning process they’re more likely to eat what is prepared.2 Our easy-to- make, fun and healthy recipes are nutritionally sound. Check out our Lunch Crunch Power Balls and Ants and Frogs on a Log in a Blanket recipes. They each take less than 30 minutes to prepare and are the perfect activity to be enjoyed with a youngster. Go ahead and encourage your clients to help their youngsters to go to the head of the class and add an omega-3 punch to their lunch with California walnuts!
Try our other back to school walnut recipes:
• Creamy Green (Kale) Walnut Shake: The best way to sneak some greens into your breakfast or snack, this creamy shake made with soaked walnuts (turned into walnut cream), kale, and every child’s go-to fruit, bananas. Sweetened ever so slightly with agave nectar or honey, they’ll never know just how many nutrients their morning shake supplies.
• Indio Date, Walnut and Dark Chocolate Cookies: The rich sweetness of dates, nutty flavor of walnuts and sinful dark chocolate flavors these delicious cookies, RD-approved cookies. And they travel well too!
1http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err61/err61.pdf
2http://www.mealsmatter.org/articles-and-resources/meal-planning-articles/How-to-plan-meals.aspx