School lunchbox

The school lunchbox is the meal that carries your child through the morning – and the best lunchbox follows a simple blueprint. The optimiX children's nutrition concept recommends two breakfasts for school children: the first at home and the second at break time. For children who can't manage anything in the morning, the lunchbox is actually their main breakfast.

The blueprint has four building blocks: wholegrains (bread, a roll, a wrap or a few wholegrain biscuits) provide energy that enters the bloodstream more slowly and keeps them full for longer. Protein (cheese, cream cheese, hummus, egg, lean cold cuts, quark) is filling. Vegetables or fruit in bite-sized pieces – cucumber sticks, pepper strips, cherry tomatoes, apple slices, berries – bring vitamins and colour. And water in a bottle; unsweetened tea is just as good, and juice only if heavily diluted with water.

Packaged “children's” snacks such as milk snacks, quark desserts, cereal bars and sweetened drink cartons look convenient but are often sweets with a child-friendly face: many contain 5 to 15 grams of sugar per portion – one to almost four sugar cubes. They're barely filling, and hunger soon returns. As an exception they're fine – as a standard, they're not.

Children eat what they help to create: let your child choose from two types of bread, three fillings and three vegetables and pack the box themselves. Cut everything small – anything that's fiddly at break time comes back untouched. A box with compartments keeps bread separate from moist foods and keeps apple slices (with a little lemon juice) looking appetising.

If the box regularly comes back full, take a look at what break time is like: too little time, too many distractions or swapping with friends often explain more than the filling. Ask your child calmly and without reproach – they often have the best idea themselves.