The adage “we eat with our eyes” is magnified times 10 with children, says Andrea Hinsdale, chief dietitian for Texas-based Snap Kitchen.
So don’t turn your nose up at bright novelty items that might help empty those lunch boxes into bellies instead of trash cans. Hinsdale isn’t talking about candy and other items laden with artificial colors and flavors, but the containers and utensils for the fresh food you send to school for your kids.
“Just by burden of occupation, I’m obsessed with packing a really safe and healthy lunch,” said Hinsdale, a mother of two young children. “But it should be fun too — at any age.”
Colorful bento accessories fit the bill. The options range all the way from a a tackle-box-like kit with bright lids to animal-shaped cutters that let you transform a basic sandwich into a work of art, the way many Japanese parents do for their kids.
“My youngest son wasn’t eating fruit and then I started dicing it and I became obsessed with searching bento on Amazon,” Hinsdale said. “There is all this cute little stuff from Japan you can buy — I found these little animal-shaped safe picks that are way cuter than a regular toothpick. And suddenly he was eating his fruit.”
She since has given them as gifts to many moms whose kids show a similar reticence. “And it seems to work every time,” she said.
Note that lunch is not the time to introduce kids to new foods. “That would be more for dinner when you can monitor how much they are eating,” Hinsdale said. She also instructs her kids to send home their lunch with whatever’s left in it so she can see what’s a hit and what’s not. “If they bring home what they’re not finishing, it helps you modify what you’re packing.”
Here are five of her other secrets to increase the likelihood of consumption — and to induce smiles when her kids see those carrots.
Name games: She refers to broccoli as “dinosaur trees” and, instead of sending a whole apple, she’ll sometimes core it and then slice the apple into rings, squeezing a bit of lemon juice over them to prevent browning before lunch. “If I call them apple doughnuts, it’s a little more exciting.”
Tiny containers: Hinsdale uses colorful, reusable silicone baking cups to segment hummus from other foods. Bento websites sell little containers with lids in bright colors. “Bright and colorful makes little hands want to open things,” Hinsdale said.
Deconstruction zone: If your child spurns sandwiches, try a deconstructed version. “My daughter went through a stage where she didn’t like to combine foods,” Hinsdale said. “I’d send a container of crackers and rolled-up sandwich meat speared with cute picks, so she either makes her own ‘sandwich’ or eats it separately. That’s an easy workaround.”
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Freeze! Bento sites and other lunchbox vendors sell colorful freeze-packs to help keep dairy items like string cheese cool. Hinsdale often freezes squeezable lower-sugar yogurt tubes so that they remain cold by the time lunch rolls around. My own daughter and her friends have cultivated a fondness for frozen grapes, devouring them like ice cream. (Even nestled under a freeze-pack, they sometimes thaw by lunchtime, but remain cool and firm to the tooth. Failing that, they’re a great after-school snack at home.)
A dash of sugar: “I tend to the few-and-far-between treats just because I’m a boring dietitian mom,” Hinsdale said. But she’ll tuck in the occasional homemade cookie, or a muffin — the trick is raw or colored sugar on top. “My kids will eat a veggie-filled muffin as long as there are sprinkles of sugar.”