The Healthy Lunchbox - Tapa dura

According to the Government's nutritional standards, a child's lunch should contain at least one portion each of fruit and veg, protein (meat or alternative), dairy products and starchy food, such as bread or pasta. But a survey by the Food Standards Agency found that nine out of ten children still take packed lunches to school that contain too much saturated fat, sugar and salt. The Healthy Lunchbox is full of suggestions and ideas to help you provide your child with an appetizing and appealing meal each day. It will explain why many lunchboxes are unhealthy. What a healthy lunch should consist of. What children and adults of different ages should have (size of portions etc). Seasonality. Variety. Encouraging children to experiment. Personalising your lunchbox and making your lunchbox special. How to adapt your lunchbox for different age groups. How to get over children's fears of being different. Dealing with the reluctant/fussy eater and the overweight. Dealing with pester power. How to get kids involved in making their own. What children from other countries take to school. Lunchbox notes. Fiona Beckett provides recipes and menu suggestions and gives her Top Ten lunchboxes (or 12, depending on book size). These are categorised by age (e.g. very small children (4-6)/teenagers), inclination (veggie/non-dairy, wheat-free), time - or lack of it (hard pushed parent with several boxes to make), budget (low cost lunch box), food politics (organic/Fairtrade lunch boxes) or ethnicity (tiffin box/bento box). Finally how to plan a week's meals on the basis of one or two shopping expeditions, and a table with a month's suggestions for lunch boxes, as well as food safety and food hygiene.

Fiona Becket is a regular contributor to Sainsbury's Magazine and the Financial Times. She is an award-winning food writer who was the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Award and the Lanson Awards in 2004. She has written many successful books the most recent being Beyond Baked Beans: Real Food for Students.