Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #915 A Slice of Advice on School Lunches

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#915 A Slice of Advice on School Lunches · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for.
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  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 1: Now, good day.
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  Speaker 3: My name's doctor Justin Courslan here with Kylie, my wife
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  Speaker 3: from mum to our six kids. Welcome to the Happy
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  Speaker 3: Family's Podcast. Ozzie as Yossi, I that wasn't even pre planned.
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  Speaker 3: I love that even though you were born in New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand and are now a naturalized Australian.
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  Speaker 1: That just came straight out.
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  Speaker 2: Well let's just say I am Australian.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you are.
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  Speaker 2: Long winded.
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  Speaker 3: I really hope that you enjoyed the Australia at Long
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  Speaker 3: weekend and got heaps out of it, lots of time
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  Speaker 3: with your family. We have a friend who became a
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  Speaker 3: naturalized Australian over the weekend, so congratulations to him and
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  Speaker 3: anyone else who became an Aussie and is now fortunate
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  Speaker 3: to live in such a brilliant, brilliant country.
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  Speaker 1: Kylie.
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  Speaker 3: All this week we've got kids right around the nation
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  Speaker 3: going back to school. Last week a couple of states began,
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  Speaker 3: but now this week it's pretty much everybody else, I think,
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  Speaker 3: and we decided that we are going to make life
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  Speaker 3: as easy as we can for parents this week short
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  Speaker 3: podcasts podcasts for time pop parents who just want answers. Now,
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  Speaker 3: we're going to give you a slice of advice, a
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  Speaker 3: single slice of advice each day to help make things
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  Speaker 3: go smoothly with the return to school.
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  Speaker 2: I know you're saying a slice of advice, but I
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  Speaker 2: know you too well, and I think that this might
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  Speaker 2: be more like a loaf of advice.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to do it really short. Okay.
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  Speaker 3: We actually put a list together for today and there's
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  Speaker 3: six slices of advice.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, six, so.
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  Speaker 2: Two double decker sandwiches.
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  Speaker 1: What we're up for.
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  Speaker 3: What we're doing today is a slice of advice on
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  Speaker 3: school lunches because number one, it's hot, right and kids
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  Speaker 3: don't like hot, mushy food by the time they get
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  Speaker 3: to recess and lunch. Number two, cost of living crunch
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  Speaker 3: nobody likes making food and seeing it go to waste.
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  Speaker 1: And number three lunches kind of.
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  Speaker 3: It's one of those things, Kylie, where it takes a
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  Speaker 3: lot of effort in the morning, takes a lot of
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  Speaker 3: effort to drag out of the kids what they're going
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  Speaker 3: to take for lunch.
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  Speaker 1: Then it takes efforts to make the lunch and the
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  Speaker 1: lunch and to make sure it all happens.
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  Speaker 3: If we're going to go to the effort of doing
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  Speaker 3: what we can to ensure that our children are taking
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  Speaker 3: a healthy lunch to school, we want to make sure
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  Speaker 3: that it's eaten and that.
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  Speaker 1: It's worth eating.
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  Speaker 3: So six slices of advice for how we can get
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  Speaker 3: the kids eating their lunch rather than binning it or
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  Speaker 3: bringing it home.
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  Speaker 2: First slice, stick with foods that are familiar to your children.
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  Speaker 2: This is not the time to start introducing new foods
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  Speaker 2: and trying to extend their taste buds.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, stretching taste buds is a challenge. The best time
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  Speaker 3: with kids, full tummy is better than no food in
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  Speaker 3: the tummy. So just prioritize sending them to school with
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  Speaker 3: food that you know that they're going to eat. That's
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  Speaker 3: your first slice of advice. Here's mine. We've done this
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  Speaker 3: in our home. This has been one of the most
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  Speaker 3: successful things we've.
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  Speaker 1: Done around school lunches.
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  Speaker 3: Menu plan and what I mean by that is literally
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  Speaker 3: create a menu like you'd get at a I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: at a restaurant.
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  Speaker 2: No, like a roadside motel when you go to those.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like the breakfasts, Order things order, Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 3: So in our home we've created menus with a whole
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  Speaker 3: lot of lunch options. What that does is it reduces
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  Speaker 3: the cognitive load on a busney morning for everyone.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just mum and dad, because you'll notice that
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  Speaker 2: when your kids are rushing around trying to do everything,
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  Speaker 2: the last thing that they've got the capacity to do
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  Speaker 2: is work out what they want to eat.
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  Speaker 3: And when you're saying, what what do you want on
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  Speaker 3: your sandwich? You want to do roll and they're kind
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  Speaker 3: of going it's all too much. So by building a menu,
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  Speaker 3: letting them decide their lunch options, and ideally doing it
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  Speaker 3: the night before so that that way that cognitive load
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  Speaker 3: is reduced even more, they're going to feel a sense
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  Speaker 3: of ownership they've chosen what they want, much higher chance
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  Speaker 3: of lunch box coming home empty with food in their
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  Speaker 3: belly when we've done it, we've given them options for
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  Speaker 3: different kinds of breads or bread rolls or wraps that
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  Speaker 3: they want. In terms of just what the food is
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  Speaker 3: going to be placed on or in, we've put all
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  Speaker 3: the different salads for them to tick, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions, sprouts.
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  Speaker 3: They never ever ticked sprouts. I don't understand what was
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  Speaker 3: going on there, Avocado, the whole lot. And then our
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  Speaker 3: job is just to have a look at the menu
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  Speaker 3: that they've ticked the night before, make sure the foods
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  Speaker 3: in the fridge for the next morning or.
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  Speaker 1: Raced out of the shops and sort that out.
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  Speaker 2: And it just clearly you weren't in the kitchen because
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  Speaker 2: generally what I did was made sure all of those
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  Speaker 2: foods were in the fridge for the week, not the
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  Speaker 2: night before.
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  Speaker 1: I've done a couple of last minute runs to the shops.
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  Speaker 1: Believe me. Anyway, men, you plan, I think.
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  Speaker 3: Is going to be a really useful solution strategy. Put
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  Speaker 3: all the different drinks they can have, the different sandwich feelings,
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  Speaker 3: the different types of breads they can have, and whatever
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  Speaker 3: else you can come up with leftovers the whole lot,
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  Speaker 3: let them tick and flick the night before.
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  Speaker 2: Slice number three. Preparing pre preparing foods and freezing them.
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  Speaker 2: This is awesome. We've done this a lot over the
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  Speaker 2: years with the kids, buying things in bolg and then
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  Speaker 2: individually wrapping them so that they're just easy to grab
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  Speaker 2: out of the freezer. This works for two reasons. Number One,
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  Speaker 2: you do the buy once and you've got access to
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  Speaker 2: it all week long. But secondly, it really helped with
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  Speaker 2: keeping everything fresh. If you're sending your kids to school
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  Speaker 2: with a lunchbox that's going to sit in their school
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  Speaker 2: bag all day, the colder things are the fresher they
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  Speaker 2: stay for longer.
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  Speaker 3: We have a friend who used to I think this
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  Speaker 3: was lazy, but it was also genius. Why work harder,
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  Speaker 3: just work smarter, right, This friend used to go down
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  Speaker 3: to the shops, make the purchase of the bread. They'd
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  Speaker 3: come home, lay out all the bread on the bench,
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  Speaker 3: put the peanut butter or the veggiemite or whatever the
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  Speaker 3: filling was that was going to go under the bread.
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  Speaker 3: Then they'd put all the sandwiches together, stick them back
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  Speaker 3: into the bread bag. And each morning the kids would
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  Speaker 3: just reach into the freezer pull a sandwich out. It
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  Speaker 3: was already glad wrapped ahead of time as well, and
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  Speaker 3: so that way they could literally just pull the sandwich
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  Speaker 3: frozen out of the freezer, stick it in their lunchbox,
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  Speaker 3: and off to school.
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  Speaker 1: Job done.
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  Speaker 3: Made things really simple. Fourth slice of advice. I'll make
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  Speaker 3: this one nice and quick because I've never really been
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  Speaker 3: involved in this one. There's a probably one that you've
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  Speaker 3: done a lot more than me. Baking days. This was
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  Speaker 3: your idea, and it's a great idea. Baking days like
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  Speaker 3: on a Saturday. Turn it into a ritual. Prepare keishes
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  Speaker 3: or muffins or other lunch friendly items that are going
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  Speaker 3: to fit in a lunch box the kids are going
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  Speaker 3: to love, but that you don't have time to prep
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  Speaker 3: on a school morning. When you do that stuff, the
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  Speaker 3: kids have food they're looking forward to eating. And again
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  Speaker 3: it's probably been in the freezer, so it stays fresh longer.
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  Speaker 3: It just works better baking days. Use the freezer menu plan,
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  Speaker 3: make sure they've got food that they like. I think
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  Speaker 3: that we're on a winner here. Two more slices of advice.
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  Speaker 2: Bento boxes. These are great for kids who don't actually
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  Speaker 2: like committing to one thing that gives them a taste.
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  Speaker 2: It's like a taste plate.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Or often they don't want a sandwich.
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  Speaker 3: They just want a range of foods that aren't sort
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  Speaker 3: of smushed between bread and.
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  Speaker 2: So the great thing about this is everything goes in
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  Speaker 2: its own little compartment. They can have vegetables, fruit, they
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  Speaker 2: can have nuts. It's a little bit tricky sometimes, but
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  Speaker 2: nuts and seeds, dried fruit, they can have meat. There's
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  Speaker 2: all the different things that you can have, but it's
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  Speaker 2: all individually spaced.
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  Speaker 3: Two things that I love about Bento boxes. Number One,
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  Speaker 3: you don't have food mingling, so the flavor to stay
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  Speaker 3: where they should, nothing leaks into the other compartments.
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  Speaker 1: If you've got a good quality Bento box.
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  Speaker 3: Thing that I like most about Bento boxes the food
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  Speaker 3: just looks great when it's all compartmentalized and separated and
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  Speaker 3: put in there, it looks good.
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  Speaker 1: And when food looks good, when it looks attractive.
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  Speaker 2: The more inviting it is to eat.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, every Valentine's Day, you make a very special Bento
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  Speaker 3: box style lunch for our kids with a whole lot
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  Speaker 3: of red and pink foods, including way too much sugar.
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  Speaker 3: But regardless of that, it all looks so attractive and
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  Speaker 3: the kids they look forward to their Valentine's lunch more
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  Speaker 3: than any other lunch of the year.
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  Speaker 2: You only have to make one Valentine's lunch box this year.
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  Speaker 3: Final slice of Advice. Final slice of Advice. It's a
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  Speaker 3: different situation, isn't it. It is for school lunches, and
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  Speaker 3: it's probably got less to do with the school lunch
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  Speaker 3: and more to do with what your kids are doing.
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  Speaker 1: Personal story.
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  Speaker 3: As a kid, growing up, I had squad sessions swim
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  Speaker 3: squad sessions up to ten times a week, so I'd
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  Speaker 3: swim from five to seven in the morning six days
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  Speaker 3: a week, and four afternoons a week. I swam from
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  Speaker 3: five to seven as well. In each of those two
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  Speaker 3: hour sessions, I'd easily be swimming five, six, maybe even
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  Speaker 3: seven kilometers. And when you swim that much and use
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  Speaker 3: your body that much, you're so hungry you don't actually
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  Speaker 3: care what's in your lunch box.
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  Speaker 1: So long as you've got a lunch box with food.
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  Speaker 2: I think you're talking about every boy on the plant
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  Speaker 2: pretty much.
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  Speaker 3: Move your body, or get the kids moving their body
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  Speaker 3: a lot. When they move their bodies that much, they
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  Speaker 3: just become a whole lot less concerned about what they're eating.
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  Speaker 3: All they want is fuel, right, They just want to
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  Speaker 3: get those calories in. I used to take well, I
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  Speaker 3: used to eat fourteen wheet picks for breakfast, and then
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  Speaker 3: I would take twelve bread rolls from the supermarket with
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  Speaker 3: marmite and butter spread on them.
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  Speaker 1: Twelve every day, twelve bread rolls.
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  Speaker 3: Six for recess, six for lunch. I didn't care what
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  Speaker 3: it tasted like. I just wanted the calories because I
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  Speaker 3: was so hungry, and I was still skinny as a
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  Speaker 3: rake because I just moved my body so much. So
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  Speaker 3: stick to familiar foods ensure that the kid's got a
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  Speaker 3: full belly, create buying through physical activity plan menus, leverage
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  Speaker 3: the power of the freezer, and consider innovative lunchbox solutions.
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  Speaker 3: That's our half loaf of advice.
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  Speaker 1: On school lunches. Good luck, good luck. Yeah, that's right,
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  Speaker 1: good luck.
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  Speaker 3: If the kids going back to school today or if
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  Speaker 3: they're already back, Hopefully these ideas are helpful. The Happy
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  Speaker 3: Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland for Bridge Media.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Craig Brews is our executive producer and for more information
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  Speaker 3: about making your family happy, we'd love for you to
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: check out Happy Families dot com, DOTU or just hang
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: out with us on social media. Dr Justin Colston's Happy
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Families on Facebook, and you can find us on Instagram
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: and TikTok as well