Healthy packed lunches - Sue Asquith - Early Childhood Consultant

Eating patterns established in the early years influence our health and food choices for the rest of our lives.  Encouraging good nutrition during children’s earliest years of life is just one of the many ways that parents and early years settings can work together to promote the health of the children. As always, we need to risk assess considering the ages and stages of the children, choking hazards (the ways we cut up vegetables and fruit), allergies, intolerances, preferred diets, cultural requirements, etc and provide constant supervision for children whilst eating.

Making packed lunches can be a real chore; it’s another meal to plan and make within an already busy schedule so I have asked nutritionist Sarah Scotland to share some of her knowledge and top tips with us too!

Ready-made foods

There are so many ready-made foods and snacks marketed for children to make parents’ life easier.  Sadly, all too often these foods contain far too much sugar and fat – the manufacturers know how to make foods that children will eat!  However, the food we eat in the first few years of life set our tastes and habits for a lifetime.  Ready-made, processed foods set tastes to include the high levels of fat and sugar/sweeteners which may make it difficult to persuade children to eat more healthy foods which in comparison may taste blander.

Children tend to always go for the sweeter foods, which can make it tricky when it comes to encouraging them to try the blander, more acidic foods such as veggies. 

Parents and childcare settings need to work together to ensure that children have the time and encouragement to keep trying healthy foods until they are accepted.  Be patient though – this could take a long time if they are already used to the tastes in the ready-made foods!  Here are some things to consider when planning and making children’s lunch boxes:

Early years foundation stage nutrition guidance

On the 25th April 2025 the Department for Education (DfE) published the Early Years Foundation Stage Nutrition Guidance. The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (the document that sets the regulatory requirements that all early years settings in England must meet) says that children are provided with meals, snacks, and drinks, these must be healthy,
balanced and nutritious. To understand how to meet this requirement childminders/providers must have regard to the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage nutrition guidance. 

Children may need a packed lunch if the childcare setting does not have cooking facilities on site.  The nutrition guidance also acknowledges that ‘families may wish to provide food from home and some children may need to bring their own meals and snacks for medical or cultural reasons.’  Regulatory obligations to provide healthy, balanced and nutritious food to children include encouraging healthier food choices for packed lunches. It is important to ensure that food
provided from home aligns with the healthy options offered by the setting, so that children receive consistent messages about nutrition.  Please ask you early years setting for their food and nutrition policy.

Planning and making a packed lunch

It is important to ensure that the food brough from home is suitable for your child’s individual developmental needs and
prepared in a way to prevent choking.  

All food served to children must be prepared in a way to prevent choking. The Food Standards Agency has 2 posters on how to prepare food safely to avoid choking.  

Clearly label your child’s lunch bag/box and detail the contents; your early years settings will need to check the contents for allergens if there are any adults or children in the setting with severe allergies. 

Children need to eat a balanced diet covering the 4 main food groups with a variety of fruit and vegetables offering different vitamins
and nutrients. Foods high in saturated fat, salt and sugar like cakes, puddings, sweet and savoury pastries, biscuits, crisps, chocolate and other confectionery must be avoided. Milk and water are the only drinks recommended.

Early Years settings do not have to provide refrigeration for children’s packed lunches; this is often restricted due to space and fridge capacity.  They are not required to reheat food brought in by children either. 

Perishable food items need to be kept cool so packing food in insulated sealed bags or putting an ice pack in your child’s lunch bag/box is a good idea.  The nutrition guidance states. If ice packs are unavailable, the ‘4-hour rule’ can be applied. This rule allows food to be stored outside of chilled conditions for up to 4 hours, but this should only be done once during the entire storage’. Consider packing foods that can safely be kept at room temperature if there is no refrigerated area for storing food brought from home.

The Food Standards Agency provides advice on Listeria which has examples of ready-to-eat foods that should be eaten within 4 hours of removing them from the fridge. 

Portion sizes

Sarah reminds us that children have little tummies and will be overwhelmed by too much food in their lunchbox.

She recommends including some key foods that are liked and try and vary this over the week.

Lunches don’t have to be sandwiches

Make a big salad and use it for a couple of days!  Couscous is cheap as well as being quick and easy to cook. Add some pre-cooked roasted veggies or frozen/tinned vegetables and you have a yummy salad. Adding tuna mayonnaise, cooked chicken or chickpeas (make sure they are soft) will add some protein. Quinoa and Bulgar wheat can also make great salads (but please check for allergens)!

Planning

Sarah recommends taking a little time to plan meals for the week to make life so much easier.  This can help you plan your grocery shopping and to ensure that you provide a varied amount of nutrients for you child/ren each day and across the week

• Can left over dinners be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for lunch, or
• Make extra dinner to portions to store in sealed containers in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch
• If you are at home storing the food in a microwavable container makes it easier to warm up or if you are on the go the food could be ready to eat in a thermos or in a microwaveable container.

Please ask your early years setting for the food and nutrition policy as your childcare settings may prefer you to provide food that does not need to be warmed up.  

Other ideas:

Falafels – there are so many different flavours – home-made or bought

Humus and veggies (risk assess for allergens, choking and always supervise children when eating)

Home-made veggie burgers can be divided into small portions

Bolani – Afghan stuffed flat breads, also cooked in Ukraine – delicious!

Pasta sala