10 Lunch box tips!

The idea is, over the school term I will share 10 lunchbox tips that have helped me with creating real food lunchboxes. One each week, encouraging you to make small, but sustainable changes to the lunchboxes you pack to make them even healthier. I will collate them all here so if you have missed any you can find them all in one place.

Tip #1
Take a look at hidden sugars!
So, you have come a long way, and there is hardly any packets in the lunchbox anymore. Lunch consists of: sandwich, apple, banana, yoghurt and a biscuit and / or muesli bar. Sounds ok huh? 

What if I told you that there could be up to TEN hidden teaspoons of added sugar in this lunchbox? The recommended daily intake of added sugars from the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 4 teaspoons for a 5 year old (and a maximum of 8) this has just blown the sugar intake through the roof in just one meal!

Let me explain;
Fresh and fruity fruit yoghurt: just over 4 tsp sugar*
2 superwine biscuits: 1 tsp
Muesli bar: around 3 tsp on average depending on the bar
Jam or honey in a sandwich: 1-2 tsp
And just like that you have 8-10 tsp of added sugar all packaged up nicely in a healthy looking school lunch.

Marmite and even some peanut butters have added sugar in them, it's everywhere and unfortunately we have to become detectives to scope this out! So what could you do about this? The trick is not to change everything at once, not only would that be hard work for you, your kids would probably be feeling pretty overwhelmed too if their lunchbox suddenly changed overnight. Make the changes small, easy for you to manage and sustainable - something you can do, and stick to, so you don't look back.
Some small, simple tips (choose one):

• Replace the sandwich filling to something like ham, salami, egg or cheese

• Spreads: We slowly got rid of things like marmite and jam from the house, so they are not even an option. Next time you run out of jam or Nutella, don't replace it. We make homemade jam by blending up berries and adding some chia seeds and a tiny bit of honey. Read the labels, make sure you get a peanut butter with no added sugar. 

• Try using plain Greek yoghurt instead of flavoured and add some fresh fruit to it, berries are perfect for that this time of year. Even stirring a teaspoon of honey through plain yoghurt will have nothing on the sugar content of a brought flavoured pottle, you could try this with the intention to reduce it completely after a few weeks. 

The lunchbox I described is one of the better lunches Ive seen in the classroom, but just because it's what everyone is packing, does it make it ok? (I'll leave that to you to decide). There is no protien, fat or vegetables in this lunchbox - some ideal forms of fuel for little bodies to learn and grow. I will share my tips on how to add these in, in the coming weeks.
*one teaspoon of sugar is about 4 grams

My kids lick the bowl has a fantastic resource which shows how much sugar is in everyday items and how it correlates to WHO's recommended daily intake. It's been expertly calculated and put into easy to read visuals! I used this to help me with my lunchbox example. I highly recommend checking it out! In fact you should lock yourself in a room for half an hour (I may have done this) and have good read of some of the articles on there! Some great explanations of concepts around health and nutrition and all things feeding kids.
My kids lick the bowl

Tip #2 

Take some time to cut up fruit and veggies to make them more appealing and easier to eat.I can't tell you the number of times I've seen a whole carrot or a big hunk of cucumber in a lunchbox that unfortunately goes uneaten (I have however seen carrots used as swords). Kids need small food, FAST, if you want them eat it instead of play with it, that is. There is a lot of play to be had, and spending time peeling, nibbling or trying to attack a fruit or vegetable the size of their arm gets in the way of play or takes up the valuable time slot allocated for lunch eating.

• I Peel mandarins, slice oranges, carrots and cucumber, I even peel and slice kiwi fruit - because the less time Chef Ashton spends spooning out kiwi fruit, the more time he has for eating his carrots!

• Make sure they can easily get into all containers, the lunchbox and any wrapping - less time spend doing this is more time to eat good food. Most schools allocate a mandatory 15 minutes to sit and eat lunch before play - think about how much food can your child realistically eat in 15 minutes, surrounded by a group of mates? Chef Ashton is a s.l.o.w eater - so I like to make the process as quick as possible for him. I also love his bento style lunchbox - its easy for him to open and get into. Before this he was opening wrapping or several containers to get his food out. 

• If you are feeling really fancy, you can get some cookie cutters and cut up fruit and veggies into fun shapes in the hope they might appeal even more. We got our set from Mitre 10 mega for $10 and I can tell you it has definitely earned its keep. I love the compact little tin to keep them in too. The cookie cutters I think are more for me, chef Ashton doesn't seem to give a toss about them, but I feel like it might also deter nosey class mates from making fun of his radish and cabbage if it's a cool shape (yup - it happens!).

This is our cookie cutter set

So the take home message is - the less time spent unwrapping, opening and trying to manoeuvre large portions of food - the more time there is to EAT it! Cut and peel fruit and veges so they are easier to eat and manage :-)

Tip #3

Add some protein to the lunchbox

Most lunchboxes are missing protein. Protein is seriously important for growing bodies, to help fuel us, build muscle and help us feel satisfied, so we are not reaching for a snack in an hours time or experiencing a 3 o clock slump after blood sugar levels have peaked from a lunch heavy in refined carbohydrates and sugars.

 You can do this by adding protein to a sandwich or wrap, like egg, ham or chicken. I actually replace the need for a sandwich with protein in Chef Ashton's lunchbox. He has things like meatballs, patties, sausage, chickpeas (roasted or as hummus), falafel, eggs - boiled, omlette, scrambled, chicken - drumstick, nibbles, wings, shredded, nuggets, or any leftover meat, nuts (if allowed - i put peanut butter on crackers when possible), seeds, salami, ham, biltong (dried beef). If you can tolerate dairy, then cheese - sticks, sliced, grated, shapes can be useful too.

I pop a small ice brick in his lunchbag to keep protein cool (in anticipation that summer might arrive in Stratford this year!)

Tip #4.

Replace one packaged item like muesli bar, biscuits or chips with a single ingredient item. 

When I first started transitioning Ashtons lunchbox I started with taking out one packet at a time. He often used to have a horrifically expensive and elaborately marketed gluten free muesli bar with 'no added sugar', but skip to the ingredients and nutritional panel it had about 3 teaspoons of sugar in the form if concentrated fruit, ugh! 

I started by replacing this with plain nuts and seeds or popcorn. 

I replaced raisins with fresh grapes - while raisins are only one ingredient (though sometimes they have added preservatives and vegetable oils - check the pack!) there are about 30 raisins in a pack, giving a toddler 30 grapes would look rediculous so I decided to replace the raisins with the real deal or just some sort of seasonal fruit. 

Chips can be replaced with home popped popcorn, crunchy carrot sticks, seeds or nuts. 

Pizza - free from dairy, soy, gluten, grains, nuts and an egg free option.

Pizza base! Free from dairy, soy, gluten, grains, nuts and with an egg free option.

The most simple and delicious pizza base recipe, free from all the usual suspects plus with an egg free option. Hooray! We love this pizza base recipe, I think it’s right up there with a gluten filled pizza base, it’s the thin, crispy type of base that compliments any toppings you slather on it and lets the flavours shine through.

You will need:

• ½ cup tapioca flour
• ½ cup coconut flour
• ½ cup oil - I use a combo of coconut and olive oil (50:50 usually) it also works fine with just olive oil
• ½ cup warm water
• 1 egg OR

egg free: 1 Tbsp gelatin (we use great lakes beef gelatin) mixed with 2 Tbsp cold water first then add enough boiling water to top up to quarter of a cup, stir to dissolve.

• ½ tsp salt

1. Preheat oven 200 deg fan bake. Combine the tapioca, salt and coconut flour together. Add both the oil and water and mix together. As you begin to panic because the mixture has gone all crumbly you can add the egg, or if egg free, the gelatin that you have pre dessolved in the water.

2. It should now start forming into a smooth batter, then a sticky ball. Decide what size you are making your pizza - this makes one huge pizza the size of my oven tray, or two smaller ones.

3. Lay out some cling film on the bench to appropriate size (I oil it slightly) and place the mixture on top. Lay another piece of cling film over top (also oiled) and roll out between the two until your desired size base is made.

4. Take off the top layer and replace it with some greased baking paper. Flip it over so the baking paper is on the bottom and peel off the other piece of cling film. Slide onto your baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes or until starting to brown on top. Put your toppings on and bake again for another 10-15 minutes.

Some of our favourite pizza toppings include:

Tomato paste with garlic and herbs added, salami, ham, capsicum, red onion, goats feta

Cranberry sauce, chicken, cashew nuts, mushrooms, rocket or baby spinach

Hummus, leftover meat, capsicum, thinly sliced courgettes, thyme

Basil pesto, ham, red onion, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms

Greek style lamb mince with dollops of coconut yoghurt, chopped baby spinach and mint leaves

Here's a little bit about me, and what makes me qualified to share my journey with you

Hi, i'm Kayla, Chef Ashton's Mum. I used to think i was crazy, with all my fandangled ideas about food, and their correlation between health, well-being and allergies. But the cat is out of the bag now, and so many people are jumping on the real food bandwagon, so either i was on to something ... or we are all crazy? I don't just mean these diets like paleo etc which have taken the limelight lately, i'm just talking about a commonsense approach to food - you know, the real stuff, that doesn't come with an ingredients list! Yeah, we need to eat more of that!

I am not qualified in health or nutrition. I am not a nutritionist. I am not a naturopath. I am not a dietician. I am not a medical professional. Our eating habits go against the grain and in some cases we do the opposite to the advice you may be given (and some advice i have been given) by medical professionals. So what makes me qualified to share what I know with you?

What i am is:

• A Mum who was first forced to take a good look into what our ‘food’ is made from, and later became curious about what our food has become.
• A Mum to a 5 year old boy who has had allergies to dairy, soy, egg and tomato and intolerance's to wheat and many chemicals, preservatives and sugar added to the ‘food’ on our supermarket shelves.
• A Mum to a one year old boy, who on his first birthday could only eat FOUR foods, with any others causing eczema, rashes, inconsolable screaming, vomiting and intestinal bleeding.
• A Mum to two boys who have been diagnosed with FPIES (Food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome)
• A parent who has seen a remarkable and rapid recovery of her sons and their allergy symptoms since cutting out processed foods and bringing real food to the table.
• A curious consumer who started to ask questions about the information we have been given about food.
• A qualified primary school teacher, who has had an insight into school lunchboxes for the last 5 years.
• A teacher at heart, with an intense passion for teaching and sharing information. I want to help you all gain the knowledge and skills to make nourishing food choices.
• A home cook, I LOVE cooking, baking and creating and i have discovered that we can choose nourishing ingredients to make delicious treats and healthy meals.
• An artist. Pre-children i used to paint, food is now my artwork (since it serves a second purpose I save time that way!) I enjoy photography so taking photos of my food-art brings me great joy.
• A life-long learner, we never stop learning and discovering. Research changes, guidelines change and new studies are coming out all the time. I love reading research papers and i’m fascinated with how our bodies work and the role that food plays in our health and wellbeing. I love reading and learning new information, but the analyst in me takes everything with a grain of salt. The first question to ask is ‘who is this study funded by’!
• An organised housewife! Since choosing to focus on living a more mindful and grateful life, my overall level of organisation has changed (in other words there are piles of washing and toys all over my house). But feeding my family nourishing food is pretty high up on my priority list, so this area of my life is quite well polished. Making real food, daily, from scratch isn’t child's play! Meal planning, meal prep, shopping lists, food budget, sourcing ingredients and recipe practice are daily tasks here. I’d love to share my skills and help you all become organised so you can put real food on your table every day too.
• A scrooge - i did not gain the nickname ‘moth wallet’ growing up for no reason. We have an extremely tight food budget. I can make something for nothing and i’m highly skilled in preparing real food on a small budget. You will seldom find cassava flour or almond meal in my recipes, as we just can’t afford to use these ingredients all the time. I can find the cheapest price and best deal for all things food.
• A University Graduate with a degree in media studies, excitingly, sometimes, I get to use this! You see many of the papers i took focused on analysing advertising, marketing techniques and popular culture. Its made me wary of following trends, encouraged me to question the 'norm' and I can see right through all those terrible marketing ploys and advertising tricks trying to convince us that we 'need' all these packaged foods in our lives!
• A realist - i am realistic about how much time, energy and money we have to spend on food. I want to make real food quick, easy, affordable and delicious for everyday families.

I would love to study food and nutrition, to help further my knowledge and understanding of the stuff we fuel our bodies with, hopefully this is in my future. But for now, this is me, who i am, at this moment. These small people that hang around our ankles in the kitchen and swipe at us for tid-bits (does that just happen to me?) are our future. I am so damn passionate about making sure every small person has access to ‘real food’, food that has grown in the ground or on a tree, food that has been raised from the ground up, food that’s pure and doesn’t come from a packet with a mile long ingredients list or a bunch of added sugar. I want to help fuel a change and i won’t be satisfied until I see it!

If you want to follow us for our day to day food inspiration you can do this on Chef Ashton's facebook page.

Why I'm so grateful for having kids with food allergies

 

It did take me about 4 years to realise it. But having kids with food allergies is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

They say every person that comes into your life does so for a reason. My boys have taught me more in these 5 short years than I learned in my entire life time. They have taught me love and dedication like I never thought possible. They have taught me compassion and empathy.

They have taught me gratitude and mindfulness. They have shown me I am a powerful force to be reckoned with, fierce with strength, courage, determination and passion. They have taught me patience and persistence. I thought I had it all figured out, but they have changed me in ways I never imagined. They have taught me that perfection is just a word, not something to strive for. That there is beauty, peace and love in every day, and it is our job to find this, be it within our environment, or ourselves. I have learned that the universe doesn't owe us anything and being happy is our responsibility.

I spent a long time after the birth of Ashton, trying to find myself again, I searched in all sorts of places and I realised later that I would never find what I was looking for. Having a child changes you, but having a child with extra challenges also changes you.

I had this beautiful premonition as I set up the baby’s room, 8 months pregnant, of what life will look like. I would will feed the baby calmly and quietly to sleep in the rocking chair. I would go for picturesque sunset walks along the beach with the baby and the dog. Life will be hard and I will be tired but being a parent will be so rewarding. Fast forward two months, I am taking the baby for a walk but it's 9am and he has been screaming for 6 hours straight, he has done nothing but scream for the last week. He is covered in rashes and vomits up all his feeds. I'm pretty sure the dog hasn’t been fed in two days and i’m not sure when I last had a shower. I'm very seriously considering which house to drop the baby off at (like actually, this was a legit plan, my mum had to come and rescue him!) I haven't slept in 10 days. Unfortunately it didn’t get much better for about 6 months! At which point the doctors said that I was only partially crazy, and Ashton actually had food allergies. Parenting was not rewarding. I was all “why me, why us, why him”, “what did we do to deserve this?” Everything was always about poor Ashton and how he couldn't have this or that. There was a lot of moping around about how we missed out on the first year of his life because I couldn't get a doctor to diagnose his allergies sooner. He was on all sorts of medications for reflux and stomach issues and it was all quite a sad state of affairs.

The days were long but the years were short, the fog of depression lifted and as I slowly gained more knowledge I began to realise that we were not helpless onlookers to some video game. We had the controls, and we could control the present and the future. We could control our actions, but most importantly our thoughts and feelings. This is what was missing, I fought for Ashton from the day he was born, everyday I was doing things to try and better our situation. But I wasn’t happy about the hand we had been dealt.

When Felix was born we were dealt a similar hand, but a change in thinking can really change your life. Felix also did nothing but scream for the first 8 weeks of his life, I got 4 blocks of 45 minute sleep a night - by the time I had pumped breastmilk for him, cleaned the equipment, breastfed and bottle fed him, then got him back to sleep. I’d then get up and look after 2 kids for the day. Tired and weary I would say things like ‘it won’t always be like this’  and ‘at least he doesn’t vomit all the time’, ‘he’s so cute when he sleeps’, ‘ these days will pass quickly’, and ‘how lucky are we to have two boys’. I never wanted to put him back and I certainly could not fathom dropping him off on someone's doorstep! This kid has taught me resilience like no other. I could have given up the feeding routine, we could have put him on a bunch of medication, we could have loathed the countless hours we spent walking his screaming body up and down the dark hallway. While I wouldn't volunteer to go back to that time (or for round 3!), i’m glad that it happened to us. It has made me appreciate every minute that a baby is asleep and without pain, every second that our children spend happy and content and every day that they are alive and well, because sadly, some people are not so lucky.

Having kids with food allergies has taught me empathy and compassion. During the 10 months I breastfed Felix, 9 of those months I lived off 10 foods (sometimes less and that was counting salt and pepper!) It taught me empathy for these kids of ours who can’t have a piece of birthday cake, who sit and watch their classmates eat christmas chocolates, or watch everyone eat cheese and crackers at the family lunch. That was me, for nearly a year I got to be that kid. And at times it sucked. There is no feeling quite like it. Knowing this, I make sure the boys don’t miss out on anything. They always have homemade safe versions of most things, and I usually one up them by making it healthier. It has given me the opportunity to explain to them, that though they can’t have what everyone else has got, they don’t want it, because for the most part it’s full of processed ingredients that are going to make them feel like crap. It has given me the understanding and self control to model the behavior by avoiding the foods alongside them. I also took on the mindset of, instead of us missing out, everyone else was really missing out on the opportunity to put real, nourishing food into their bodies. Today I appreciate food more than ever, I don’t want the cake and that’s my choice. What I've learned from having such a limited diet has changed all our eating habits for the better and made me realise what it feels like to be truly healthy, happy and energized, and I am so grateful for that!

This experience has taught me that there are some truly wonderful, kind and just generally kickass-amazing human beings out there. Some of these people were complete strangers and they have given me advice and knowledge that has changed the course of our life. Some helped us see specialists for Felix and one lady gave me personal advice on how to pursue a total elimination diet, which was the start to us ending Felix’s pain and suffering. From that, we have never looked back. I am so glad I have met some of these people and experienced how kind and caring our human race can really be. I endeavor to pay this forward whenever I can, to be that kind human being that reached out to help another fellow mum in need.

When I am up late preparing safe snacks for the boys to take to a birthday party, I am grateful. I am grateful they are not filling their bodies with junk. I am grateful they are learning about what they can and can’t eat and how to manage their allergies responsibly. I am grateful that I love to cook and can use this opportunity to do so. I am grateful that we are aware of how different foods can affect our bodies and can make healthy choices based on this. I am grateful we are not filling our bodies with chemicals, fake foods, colours or preservatives.

When I open the fridge to get ‘starving Felix’ a snack and there is nothing right there, he can eat, I am grateful. I am grateful that the kid who was once fed through a tube down his nose is asking for food. I am grateful that I can find any fruit or vegetable and prepare this for him to eat, 5 months ago he could only eat 4 foods. I’m so grateful for that. I am grateful that though I often have to spend time preparing him something, rather than grab it off a shelf, I am teaching him patience, as he watches me find something and helps me cook it. Don’t be fooled there is often squealing involved and it ends in pots and pans pulled out all over the kitchen floor! But that’s ok because he has also taught me that perfect isn’t having organised cupboards or clean floors. Perfect is that moment right now, because life is happening and we are all OK.

I have learned that we all have problems and challenges. Sitting next to my child, limp and lethargic in the emergency room after he has vomited until he is passed out because of something he ate, is not much fun. But neither is sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, waiting to have your child's 5th ear infection that month, diagnosed. Neither is dealing with major scream-cry-and-throw-shit temper tantrums all day. Nor is getting up every.single.hour overnight to an unsettled baby. I am no more super than the rest of you. You can have your unsettled baby and your ear infections, and i’ll have my children with food allergies, because that’s what I do best.

So last year I found something, I discovered this resourceful, passionate, driven, strong, truly blessed woman. She wasn’t quite what I had been looking for, she was better. I have food allergies to thank for that. The experience has helped shape me into the person I am today and this, I am so grateful for.