Are the New Rules for School Lunches Enough?
Feb 2, 2012 Eco Friendly Parenting
The first big change to school lunch nutrition standards was released last week. The goal is to provide healthier lunches for children at school, a major meal for many school age children. The change means more fruits and vegetables in school lunches, and smaller portion sizes. But are these changes enough?
There’s a lot good to be said for the changes. Schools can get six more cents per meal, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the first real increase in 30 years, and is tied to the school’s performance in providing better meals. Training and assistance is available to help schools comply. There is a focus on limiting saturated fats, trans fats and sodium. More whole grains are to be served.
The news on school lunches isn’t entirely good. It rarely is when you’re talking about something that goes through so political a process.
Tomato sauce on pizza still allows it to be counted as a vegetable, and there aren’t limits on how often potatoes can be served. On the plus side, baked or roasted potato servings will be encouraged, rather than french fries.
I’m sure this will have more impact at some schools than others. My kids’ school, for example, already has a salad and fruit bar option for the kids daily, and they go for local produce when possible. It’s a pretty nice deal, and something I’d love to see more schools offer. The only problem is that you get that or the hot lunch, and the hot lunch is more of a typical school lunch most days. On the plus side, pizza days include the salad bar with the pizza, so that one is popular and probably balances out better than many other school lunches… depending on the kid picking the lunch, of course.
As a parent, I think they key here is to make sure that your school makes the most of these new standards. If your school isn’t offering sufficiently healthy lunches, speak up and encourage change. There’s still a ways to go, both in making school lunches healthier and in teaching kids to eat better. The schools can’t do it alone. We parents have to do our part to encourage children to eat healthier foods and to be more active. It will take time and effort to get it right.
7 Handmade Gifts You Can Make With Your Kids
Dec 14, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting
As Christmas gets closer, it gets harder to figure out what you’re getting for the rest of the people on your list. It can be harder yet to decide what your kids will give to grandparents and the few other people they give presents too. It’s a good time to start working on some handmade presents, things that show personal effort yet look really nice.
1. Cookies
Kids love to make cookies. Pick some favorite recipes and get started. Use organic, fair trade or local ingredients where possible. You can buy organic or fair trade chocolate chips
2. Candy
A little touch of candy making is always fun. I usually do something with chocolate. Chocolate covered pomegranate seeds are easy, for example. You simply melt the chocolate, stir in the pomegranate seeds, then scoop away a few seeds at a time to a cookie sheet to cool. Just a few seeds together are best, and you may want to warn recipients to eat these quickly, as the pomegranate seeds won’t stay good for long. They’re also very juicy and should be eaten carefully so they don’t squirt.
Truffles are also fun to make. There are all kinds of recipes online. My own favorite is a pomegranate truffle, and yes, you are sensing a theme here. My mother has a pomegranate tree, which should pretty much explain it. The truffles are made from pomegranate juice simmered down to about half, with dark chocolate mixed in, allowed to cool, made into small balls, allowed to cool again, then dipped in dark chocolate to coat. The insides melt very quickly, so I usually keep these cold.
3. Homemade Play Dough
This is a great gift for kids to give their friends. You can mix it up all the way or just give bags of powder and instructions on how to finish it off. The play dough recipe can be as simple as a mix of flour, salt, water and food coloring. A little vegetable oil can help make it a little smoother, but I often skip that part and I’ve never bothered with the cream of tartar many recipes recommend, nor do I cook mine. It comes out well and lasts for weeks anyhow.
4. Homemade Slime
This is another fun project, although the ingredients aren’t all as safe as the ones for play dough. Still not too bad, overall. Slime is basically water, Elmer’s glue, borax and food coloring.
5. Heat Packs
You can make heat packs in a variety of sizes. Buy an attractive, sturdy cotton cloth for the bag. Other fabrics may not fare well in the microwave and should not be used. Decide how large a bag you want. Smaller bags are good as hand warmers, which can be nice for cold weather. Larger ones are nice for heating sore muscles and can be draped on the neck or leaned on for a sore back.
Use your choice of filler. Rice, buckwheat hulls, feed corn, barley and beans are common choices. Only one is really necessary. Don’t fill the bag too full, as it should be fairly flexible.
Add in any scents desired. Dried herbs such as lavender, rose petals, mint or rosemary smell nice. You can also use essential oils. Mix these in before filling the bag. Be careful if you know the intended recipient is sensitive to certain smells.
Fill the bag and stitch it closed. I like to include a removable cover bag. It’s much easier to wash a cover than it is to wash a heat pack bag, and they do get dirty over time.
6. Bath Salts
Bath salts are easy to make. You just need a clean, empty jar, epsom salts and/or sea salts, food coloring and some essential oils. Glycerin is a nice addition, but not absolutely necessary. Mix your ingredients together in a bowl, remembering that it doesn’t take much essential oil at all to make a nice scent through the whole thing.
You can decorate the jars to make them more attractive if you like. I save jars from spaghetti sauce and other things all year, so jars for projects like this really aren’t hard to come by.
7. Time
Not even handmade gifts always have to be from something you purchased. You can give the gift of time instead. You can offer to run errands, clean around the house, whatever the recipient would love for you to do.
This one can be great for grandparents, especially if they’re having trouble doing things themselves as they get older. Odds are they don’t need more stuff, but they certainly love having more time with the people they love.
Of course, you don’t have to limit this one to grandparents. Maybe you have a skill that someone else would love to have you share with them. I often have people asking me about how to set up a website, for example, and helping someone get started could be a great gift.
Tags: gift ideas, handmade gifts, holidays, kids
Kids and Christmas – How Do You Keep the “Gimmes!” Away?
Nov 29, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting
Christmas is a fun time to be a kid. You get to ask all kinds of people for things you want, and there’s a chance you might get them. It’s all pretty amazing. It also encourages kids to get really demanding about wanting more and more stuff. Is there any way to control this?
No way is perfect, of course, but you can cut things down some. Kids will be kids, and that means that even if you limit exposure to television commercials, there will be friends talking about the latest and greatest whatevers. Still, cutting down on media exposure is one of the best ways to limit how much stuff children ask for. Here are some more ideas.
Talk to Them Honestly
Discuss with your kids why they can’t have everything they want. You can cover financial reasons (who can afford all that?), environmental reasons (the waste, oh, the waste!) and even that sometimes it’s hard to buy something because too many people want it.
Go with whatever works for you. Children, especially as they get older, understand more than many adults think.
Remind Them of What’s Important to Your Family
We all want things, but there are values beyond things. Whether it’s the meaning of the holiday, thinking of those less fortunate or something else, remind your kids what lies beyond wishing for presents.
Discuss the Value of Patience
This one really helps if what your child wants is something you’re willing to get, but can’t do so yet. It doesn’t matter if it’s for financial reasons or because all the stores are sold out. Patience is something children need to learn.
Encourage Them to Give
Whether it’s the gifts they give to family or something your children give to charity, help them to remember that giving is as much a part of Christmas as receiving. Help your children start thinking of others, even if it’s just family members.
This can also include giving toys to a Toys for Tots drive or finding a place that gives you information about what a child or a family would like for Christmas. Another choice would be to look at international charities that provide live animals to poor families or otherwise do things to help communities in need. There are many opportunities to give both locally and around the world.
Sort Out Old Toys
Christmas is one of my favorite times to sort out old toys to give to charity. Kids know that new ones are coming, and there’s always some that just don’t get used anymore or maybe never really caught your child’s attention.
If your child is reluctant, you can do the sort yourself. I still suggest keeping your child involved in the process. One way is to divide the toys into two more or less equal piles. Let your child pick one to keep. Allow trades for truly wanted items, but you can put rules on it such as having to give up two items to get one back. Make sure you keep sets together.
Take the unwanted toys to a favorite charity together. You and your child can talk about what the charity will do with the toys and who will benefit.
If you really want to work the lesson more, you can encourage your child to give up some current favorite toys. Children can be amazingly generous given the chance. They may wince and whine, but they also may do it.
Ever Get Comments About Your Child’s School Lunches?
Nov 15, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting
My kids bring lunch to school pretty much every day. I’m good at making their lunches on a small budget, and it allows me to include fresh vegetable and healthier ingredients in their lunches. What amazes me are that the kids get comments on their lunches, not too much from the other kids, but from the adults around them at the school.
My oldest says that her lunches fascinate one of the yard duties. My daughter often takes leftovers from the night before, plus a carrot or other fresh vegetable. It doesn’t often much resemble what other kids bring, from the little I’ve seen. No bag of chips, no juice box. It’s not always perfectly healthy or balanced, but it averages pretty good. My daughter eagerly awaits the next batch of homemade chicken soup so she can start bringing it to school, as it’s a favorite.
My son doesn’t get nearly so many comments, mostly because he’s in a big peanut butter and jelly phase. That’s all he ever wants for lunch. It’s cheap, and I’m glad of the protein in the peanut butter, but it’s not my favorite lunch for him overall. But when you pack school lunches, you want to be sure that the food will be eaten, and that’s what works right now. I hope it changes soon.
The key to a good packed school lunch is to make one that your kids will eat and not overmuch miss the junk that their friends will probably bring along. It pays to listen to what your kids want. Provide favored healthy foods, and they aren’t as likely to trade them away.
I don’t do all the packing for my kids’ lunches, and I think that’s a part of what helps. I pack the main dish, they pick sides and snacks from what we’ve agreed is allowed. This keeps it healthy yet it was their decision in part, rather than entirely my own.
Certainly they sometimes miss the foods they see other kids bringing, but not too badly so far. They know chips and such as an occasional treat, not a daily food. I’m hoping this will help with lifelong eating habits, although one can never be certain of that. Still, this is the time to try.
It’s really a lot of fun packing school lunches that are healthy enough to get positive and intrigued comments from others. It’s a little way for my kids to stand out in a positive way.
Supporting My Kids’ School and the Environment
Nov 9, 2011 Eco Friendly Parenting
I really like how things are going this year at the school my children go to. Their school is a candidate school for an international charter school program, and it’s really going well. Most of the curriculum is what you’d expect from a public school, as the charter school is owned by the district, but it’s the little extras that make it so nice. I particularly like that the inevitable fundraising has been environmentally aware. Recycling is a part of it for my son’s class.
It’s pretty simple. They’re collecting soda cans and plastic bottles for recycling. Once a week we’re allowed to bring them in.
I don’t bring in much. We don’t drink much soda. However, I have a relative who does, and while I don’t see her much, I’ve asked that she put her cans aside for when I do visit or if she comes to see me. Every once in a while, the school should be getting a good sized donation of recyclables from us that way.
The teacher also wants magazines for class projects. It’s a first grade class, so she has requested that magazines have appropriate content and that ads for things such as adult drinks be removed.
Even the classic fundraiser they did recently was with an environmentally friendly company. I like how they’re thinking these things out. We probably didn’t sell as much as we would have with a cookie dough or wrapping paper fundraiser, but I like to think that it was less wasteful.
I’m really anxious for the fundraiser for my daughter’s class to start, and I really don’t know why it hasn’t started yet. Theirs isn’t to be quite so obviously environmental, but selling grocery store scrip is a pretty good idea. You spend what you’d spend anyhow, and the school gets money. It seems like a good idea to me.
If you’re involved in fundraising efforts for your child’s school, I urge you to consider the environment when you do so. Recycling certain materials can make some good money for your school while teaching the kids the value of recycling, and there are more environmentally friendly products out there to sell to family and friends than the usual stuff.
Tags: charter school, eco friendly fundraisers, school fundraisers
