A balanced diet is essential to maintain good health. And it is more so in children, as it will allow them to achieve optimal physical and intellectual development and proper growth. That is why it is essential coordinate the school menu with what we eat at home.
Let's use the dining room service or prepare a tupper to be taken to school, to be able to have an overview of what the child will eat It is basic to give them a balanced diet.
A balanced diet
The ideal infant diet should, rather than have all possible foods, provide all the nutrients that are needed. Some are important to take daily, others are stored, so your need can be considered more weekly than daily. That's why it's important coordinate the school and home menu.
And an important issue to keep in mind is that, although planning is important, if children are allowed to choose their food, without interference and offering them healthy food, their choices, according to some studies, are really balanced.
That is, if we set a varied table with healthy food, we would not rude children by giving them candy or using food as a reward or threatening them, because they would eat much better and even in a balanced way.
That is why I am in favor of the tupper, since we can be ourselves, the parents, and with the collaboration of our children, who decide what we will put, according to the desires of the children.
But even, if we use the dining room and this leaves few possibilities of choice, if we can recover that good habit in the rest of the meals that children make at home.
The ideal would be offer children a complete table on each occasion. It is not necessary to cook too much, a hot dish with fresh vegetables and protein, salads, cheese, fruit, nuts, bread and homemade biscuits.
However, not all children reach school age with a good nutritional education nor are all school canteens balanced, so we will have to complement the freedom of choice with good coordination of the school menu and what we offer at home.
The truth is that if there really was freedom to choose the school a point to consider would be the dining room and its quality, but the reality is that, in this sense, many times the school is not chosen, and there is not much possibility of knowing the quality of the dining room or influencing it.
My advice would be, if possible, to opt for schools that propose varied menus, made with local products, fresh, without frying, with quality proteins, use olive oil exclusively, use whole wheat flour and do not use industrial dairy products.
But yes the school menu It is of worse quality, so it is especially important that we, At home, we coordinate and fill in the possible shortcomings.
Coordinating the school and home menus
Depending, of course, on each child and their appetite, and also on the quality of the school canteen, we will have to plan menu coordination one way or another.
It is important to have the school menu monthly and also know first hand what they put. That is to say, a salad buffet with variety is not the same as a leaf of lettuce and a transparent slice of tomato. An industrial preparation of battered fish made with panga is not the same as a slice of salmon. It is not the same to have a voracious preteen or a good-eating child than one who looks like a little bird.
Therefore, have the list and also know that it is placed on the table exactly. And about that, plan. You should not, anyway, a good salad every night, that is basic, especially if the school is lacking.
If the child is small or little to eat and the school insists that they eat everything between their standards, we will give them a snack of lesser quantity and a single dish dinner, always, in my opinion, emphasizing proteins Quality and fresh vegetables, which is what is usually missing in school.
Yes in the school menu They use fried foods, we will avoid them. If they make breaded, we will avoid them. If there is an excess of hydrates and fats, as usually happens, we will opt for the simplest dishes, steaks of meat or grilled or steamed fish combined with vegetables.
If we use pasta or rice at night, or a soup, we will try to make it the day they have not eaten it at school and we will cook them low in fat and with vegetables and protein. And of course, we will avoid junk food, industrial pastries and precooked food, to bet on the Mediterranean diet.
That is, when let's coordinate the school menu and the home menu, let's look for the balance of nutrients and the best possible quality in our home, so as not to overload the child with products that promote obesity and that feed little, to give way to all the richness in vitamins, fiber, proteins and minerals they need to be well nourished
