Getting out of the lunchbox rut thanks to Flora!

I am genuinely and sincerely grateful to Flora for sending us a cute lunchbox with a little leaflet of ideas for kid's packed lunches. Whilst school dinners have come a long way since I was a child, sadly when it comes to packed lunches it is all too easy to get stuck in a lunchbox rut. Which is exactly where we were.

It has been a case of same old sandwich, cereal bar and pack of crisps for a long time now so it was great to have an opportunity to shake things up a bit for the better.

In fact, we're not the only ones... "A Flora-commissioned University of Leeds study recently revealed that only 1.6% of children in England receive a packed lunch that meets the nutritional standards set for school meals, with just 17% of lunches containing any kind of vegetables or salad. Flora wants to change that!"

The little guide containing tips and ideas follows a 'lunchbox builder' plan where you create a main from some suggested ideas, then add a snack or two and finally 2 portions of fruit or veg from your 5 portions a day.

It also has some themed lunch ideas like 'Florasaurus', 'Stegasaurus' and so on - but I stuck with the main lunchbox builder guide and found it SO useful!

My own tips for getting kids to eat their five a day as part of their pack lunch involve making fruit and veg a little different and fun.

My kids adore fruit crisps from Nim's* which are 100% natural and count as one of your five a day so that is one of the things they often ask for in their lunchboxes.

Presenting fruit as fruit kebabs or rolled up in wraps also makes it more fun and appealing to kids.

Spiralising vegetables like these carrots and popping it into little silicone cake cases is another fun thing to do with fruit and veg!

Now before you judge me as giving my kids unhealthy food when you see these rainbow sprinkles, please hear me out first...I spotted the concept of 'fairy bread' in a magazine recently - quite simply bread with butter or spread (or in this case Flora), and Pinterest is rife with the stuff. 

So I wanted to have a go at making my own...

And then giving it a healthier twist...

So in our healthy version of 'fairy bread' we have wholegrain bread, spread with Flora Original and topped with pieces of dried fruit (We used Nim's Kiwi & Pineapple 100% natural air-dried crisps and Orange Nim's crisps broken into small pieces and mixed with freeze dried raspberry).

Not only did it look super but when given to D to do the all important taste test, he actually preferred the healthy version of fairy bread - *fist pump* - Yes!

This post is an entry for the #FloraLunchbox Linky Challenge, sponsored by Flora. Check out their lunch planner and recipe ideas here 

Flora kindly sent us the lunchbox and a voucher to purchase Flora with. 

*I work with Nim's Fruit Crisps as my 'day job' but my honest opinion is that I adore them so much!