Fun Lunches Help School Kids Eat Healthy Foods
2022-09-20
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1From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.
2When it comes to making lunch for their kids, moms and dads have usual favorites.
3For some parents in the United States, those favorites are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - also known as PB&Js.
4Fruit like apples and bananas are also popular.
5But one mother has an unusual go-to ingredient for her children's lunches.
6Jenny Mollen uses funny-looking candy eyes.
7She has learned that her children will eat any healthy food if it has edible eyeballs attached.
8The "eyeballs" are really pieces of candy.
9Her children laugh while they eat healthy foods like bell peppers, kiwis, or dates.
10The writer and actor says candy "eyes" make lunch more fun.
11She wrote about her creative school lunches in a book, Dictator Lunches: Inspired Meals that Will Compel Even the Toughest of Children.
12"Honestly, first of all, just buy yourself some candy googly eyes. They (are) tried-and-true," she said.
13She admits that "you lose something nutritionally" by giving children candy.
14But she thinks that getting children to eat healthy food by putting candy on it is worth it.
15Mollen's lunch tricks bring together food and craft.
16She uses tricks because her two sons do not like to eat different kinds of foods.
17So, she decorates their food to look like animals or even their favorite Pokémon characters.
18She makes edible "bugs" made from dates, pretzel sticks for the legs, and, of course, candy "eyes."
19She also uses leftover Chinese food to make panda bears from rice and seaweed.
20Mollen notes that she puts yogurt into fruit like strawberries and raspberries and then tops with some granola, a mixture of oats and nuts.
21She says her lunch projects are easy to do. And her sons think they have won a big prize at their midday meal.
22The edible art is not hard to make.
23To create it, she says you only need a few tools - a vegetable peeler, shaped containers and cutters, and some special knives.
24She says she does not have to buy special ingredients.
25She uses leftovers from dinner the night before and everyday items from her food storage area.
26She likes using sunflower seed butter to stick her creations together.
27This idea of making food fun-looking is not new.
28Some Japanese parents are known for creating artful lunches, called bento boxes.
29They often have cute, animal-shaped rice balls and flowers or other shapes made from vegetables.
30Mollen says making fun-looking, artful lunches for her children helps ease her guilt.
31She says, "I (am) a working mom and not the mom doing pick up and drop off. I'm not with them at the park after school every day. I (am) usually working."
32Her artful lunches are her way of reminding her children that she is thinking of them.
33Mollen says she also wants to teach them healthy eating habits.
34She says that by getting kids to eat vegetables at a young age, they will grow up to eat healthy foods later in life.
35She also says it is a good way to get children to try foods from other cultures.
36If they need to be "tricked" sometimes, that is okay.
37And that's the Health & Lifestyle report.
38I'm Anna Matteo.