If you’re loving how you feel on the Paleo diet, you may want your family to start eating this way, too. It is easy to put your kids on a Paleo diet, starting with their lunches. Instead of preparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or sending them off with money for the cafeteria, you just need to prepare a lunch box that is suitable for kids, but also fits within the Paleo diet. Here are some tips for doing just that.
Use Bento Boxes
One of the best ways to put together a kids’ lunch for the Paleo diet is to use Bento boxes. These are lunch boxes that contain multiple compartments, making it easy to include all the essential ingredients that should go into the lunch. This is much easier than using different snack-size baggies to put in a regular lunch box or brown lunch bag. With the compartments, you can portion-control everything and know exactly how much of each food item to include. Plus, they are usually both refrigerator and freezer-friendly, which means they are perfect for meal planning and prep. Here are some bento boxes for kids on Amazon. Don’t look at the first one, omg, it’s $80!! Scroll past it to the more reasonable ones, like these:
Provide Balanced Lunches
One issue with putting together a lunch is making sure you have all of the important components for a Paleo meal. For kids, you might be used to giving them a sandwich, chips, and an apple, but this is no longer an option. It is a good place to start, but it isn’t well-balanced, not to mention some of these foods aren’t appropriate for a Paleo diet. To get good balance, you want to include some type of animal protein, vegetables, a healthy fat, and some fruit and/or nuts.
Finger Foods Are Great
A kids lunch doesn’t have to fit the mold of what you think it should be. There is nothing wrong with just having little finger foods and ‘snacks’ in the lunch as long as it is healthy, balanced, and Paleo-friendly. For example, use your bento box and fill up each compartment with a different food option, such as a lunch with almonds, carrot sticks, slices of turkey, cubes of cheddar cheese, and some berries. This is very well balanced and healthy for your kids.
Let the Kids Help
One of the best ways to put together kids lunches for the Paleo diet is to let them help! This is also good for transitioning them to the new lifestyle. You can let them know what food items they have to choose from, then let them pick one item from each different major component so they have a lunch they enjoy, but that you find acceptable for Paleo.
