Try building a tasty, healthy lunch from the following:
* The base:
Choose one of these carbohydrate-based foods to fill hungry tummies.
Suggestions are, pasta, rice, potatoes, couscous, noodles, spaghetti, or bread. Use a variety of wholemeal, white, rye, pita, rolls, bagels, crackers, or English muffins.
* Fillings
Select a high protein filling from one of the following: lean beef, lamb or pork, ham, corned beef, rissoles, meatloaf, chicken breast, tinned tuna, salmon or sardines, cheese (e.g. cheddar, fetta, cream cheese, haloumi or cottage), egg, baked beans or three-bean mix.
* Cooked vegetables and salad
Add two or more varieties for plenty of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre.
Suggestions are, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, grated carrot, snow pea sprouts, celery, capsicum, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, beans, pitted olives, spinach, asparagus, pumpkin, sweet potato, or avocado (avoid soggy fillings for lunch box sandwiches.)
* Flavourings
Add flavour by using a small amount of one or more of the following: parsley, chives, curry powder, mild mustard, salt-reduced tomato sauce or soy sauce, chutneys, relishes, mint sauce, mayonnaise, and yeast extracts.
Make up your own combinations from the above foods:
Some suggestions include:
• Chicken breast, chopped tomato, celery and capsicum in pita or pocket bread.
• Lean roast beef, tomato, grainy mustard and lettuce on rye.
• Banana on raisin bread.
• Baked beans and alfalfa sprouts on a bread roll.
• A salad box with lettuce, potato salad, green beans, pitted olives and a hard boiled egg.
• A cold lean lamb cutlet, couscous, cherry tomatoes and cucumber.
• Stir-fried vegetables and pork with rice or noddles.
• Tuna or salmon rissoles, salad and pasta.
* Add fruit
For a delicious and nutritious addition to the meal, add one of the following: apple, banana, mandarin, pear, tangelo or tangerine, bunch of seedless grapes, apricots, plums, peach, a small container of fruit salad, nectarine, strawberries, snack pack containers of fruit, cut up pieces of watermelon, rockmelon or honeydew, orange (peeled and then re-wrapped), and kiwi fruit.
* Drinks
Active bodies need plenty of fluid to keep them well hydrated, so water should be available at all times and encouraged as the best way to quench thirst.
Also try cows milk or soy drink with added calcium, no more than one cup of diluted 100 per cent fruit juice (with at least half water) should be given each day, while low or reduced-fat milks are not suitable for young children under two years, but reduced-fat varieties (1–2 per cent fat) are encouraged for older children and adolescents.
Information produced by NSW Health (www.health.nsw.gov.au)
