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School food

Healthy eating tips for parents

• Try to encourage your child to eat breakfast every day. Wholegrain cereals without added sugar, porridge, wholemeal toast, fruit and low fat yoghurt are all good ways to start the day.
  
  
• If your child is not keen on vegetables, disguise them by chopping the vegetables into small pieces and adding to pasta sauces, curry dishes or stews. Make them a bowl of salad or give them raw carrot or celery sticks to munch.
  
  
• To encourage children to eat more fruit, try adding chopped or dried fruit to cereal or yoghurt at breakfast time. You could also provide fruit as a morning snack, or provide a portion of fruit salad at lunchtime, or as a dessert after the evening meal. Chopping an apple or melon into easy to hold segments may encourage your child to eat it, and may also prevent waste.
  
  
• Make homemade pizza with your child, or try one of the recipes suggested by the school caterers. Children are often more willing to try something new when they have been involved in cooking it. You could make homemade pizza bases (you could use wholemeal flour as an alternative to white flour) and add different toppings – why not try sweetcorn, cherry tomatoes, peppers and tuna?
  
  
• Try not to give your child too many foods that contain a lot of fat, especially saturated fat – the type that is found in hard fats like butter, or in fatty meat, pies, cakes and biscuits, or to fry foods too often. If frying food aim to use less oil, or use olive oil instead of lard or ghee.
  
  
• Encourage snacking on healthy foods that are unlikely to damage teeth. All foods and drinks containing sugar should be eaten mainly at mealtimes to reduce the risk of tooth decay. Try fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, toast, scones, plain popcorn, unsalted nuts and seeds. Raisins and other dried fruit are best consumed as part of a meal as they are high in sugar.
  
  
• Try to reduce the amount of fizzy and / or sugary drinks consumed, and encourage children to drink more water. More and more schools are encouraging the consumption of water at any time of day. Check with your school to see what water provision is available.
  
  
• Keeping sugar to mealtimes will greatly reduce the number of acid attacks on teeth, and therefore help to prevent tooth decay

For more tips on eating well visit  Eat well, be well| .

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