Our government's guide to better nutrition urges us to include in every three-meals-a-day plenty of fruits and vegetables (some raw and some cooked), milk, eggs, and other dairy products, whole grain, cereals, enriched white or whole wheat bread, and meat or other protein foods, such as fish, fowl, peas, beans and lentils.
With careful planning, many of these foods can be included in the school lunch box. Sandwiches, for example, which are still the mainstay of every lunch box, can contribute many important foods to the menus, especially if they are prepared from slices of enriched white or whole wheat bread, which add important B vitamins and iron to the diet, and spread with butter or vitamin-fortified margarine.
There are literally dozens of sandwich fillings in the realm of important foods which children can find appealing. Peanut butter, chopped hard cooked eggs, meat, fish, fowl, cheese, and even ground dried fruits moistened with fruit juice or mayonnaise. Grind raw carrots, watercress, chopped celery shredded cabbage, and members of the lettuce family add raw vegetables to the menu.
Fruits can be carried as fresh raw fruits, as fruit juice in a thermos bottle, or as canned or stewed dried fruit in little jars with snug-fitting caps. The thermos jug also comes in handy for milk or hot soup if the weather is cold. Salads or puddings can also be packed in the lunch box in little jars with tight-fitting caps.
To make eating from a lunch box day after day an interesting adventure, work the charm of variety in menus, and prepare and wrap the foods carefully so they will have eye as well as palate appeal. Here are a few ideas for branching out from the standard lunch box formula which will help keep youngsters interested. If milk begins to pall as an everyday occupant of the thermos bottle, bring it into the menu as a smooth baked custard, a chocolate, vanilla, or butterscotch pudding, or a creamy rice pudding, or a brain or fruited tapioca cream. Small jelly jars with tight-fitting lids are excellent containers for these milk desserts.
This gives you a chance to fill the thermos bottle with one of those refreshing fruit juices that add important vitamins B and C to the daily diet. The sun-ripened flavor of canned unsweetened pineapple juice from Hawaii, for example, is a favorite beverage with the young fry and tastes mighty good with lunch box sandwiches.
Don't forget the possibility of lunch box salads packed in little jars with tight-fitting caps. Shredded cabbage with raisins, carrots, bits of tomato, chopped pineapple and marshmallows, or celery and green pepper are all good suggestions.
For that bit of sweet that most children are so fond of, you can tuck in a few wholesome cookies such as Molasses Drop Cookies, and Honey Oatmeal Cookies.
Molasses Drop Cookies
3/4 cup melted shortening
1 cup molasses
2 eggs, beaten
2.5 cups sifted flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup raisins, chopped
Mix shortening and molasses. Add eggs and stir until blended. Sift together dry ingredients, and add to first mixture alternately with the milk, in which the soda has been dissolved. Add lemon extract and raisins. Drop by teaspoons on greased baking sheet. Bake in hot oven (425 degrees F.) 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 4 to 5 dozen cookies.
Honey Oatmeal Cookies
2/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup milk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon each, cinnamon and nutmeg
Cream shortening; beat in sugar gradually and honey. Add eggs, and beat well. Add salt, raisins and rolled oats. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Mix. Drop from teaspoon onto greased cooky sheet; bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 15 to 20 minutes. Makes about 8 dozen.
Molasses Rice Pudding
4 cups milk
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup washed rice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
Combine ingredients. Bake in slow oven (275 to 300 degrees F.) 2.5 hours, stirring 4 times (every fifteen minutes for first hour) and add 1 tablespoon butter in fourth stirring. Makes 6 portions.
Angel_Merle
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