What Makes a healthy lunchbox?

Having three children who bring their lunch to school 98% of the time creates an assembly line in our home most mornings.  My wife and I figure we make close to 2,250 individual lunches over the course of a school year.  No small task and well worth mentioning a recent article in BBC News, What’s in a Healthy Lunchbox? It was this quote that struck a cord “Ninety-nine out of every 100 packed lunches being eaten by primary school children are reported to be unhealthy and failing to meet nutritional standards”.  So what should a healthy lunch contain and what foods should be left out?

For those parents making the choice to pack their kids lunch or those children willing to pack their own (my kids are bound to get there sooner or later) these are the recommended daily amounts from Food Standards Agency:

• 33% – Bread, rice, potatoes, pasta
• 33% – Fruit and vegetables
• 15% – Milk and dairy foods
• 12% – Meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein
• 8% – Foods and drinks high in fat and/or sugar