Back to School...So What's For Lunch??

Its almost time to get the kids up early again and rush them out the door to school before we ourselves must get ready for our own day of work. As a kid, I can remember having a hot breakfast a couple times a week and cereal the rest. My mother was like a machine at that point. My bagged lunch was usually made before I got up, along with the rest of my sisters. How about you? What's your fondest memory of morning rituals before school?

Someday your children will be answering that question about what you used to do for them. So now is the time to create those answers. What is it that you want your kids to say about you? Is it that they got a breakfast hot pocket and a few bucks for lunch or maybe it will be something about the care you took in choosing the right foods for them to eat that are healthy and nutritious. Who knows, maybe even a good breakfast will help them pay attention in class without dozing off from the sugared cereal crash.

Breakfast is an important meal, sometimes overlooked, but probably one of the meals of the day that's within our control. What happens when we send our kids off to school with some lunch money? What is it they are going to eat? Keep this in mind, schools are short on funding, always have been and probably always will. Its unlikely that each school is going to spend the money on preservative free foods, locally grown and so on. Instead, they are trying to cook for the overcrowded schools on the smallest budget with the least amount of labor possible. So convenient, labor efficient, highly processed foods are the common answer to this equation. Schools are cooking for thousands of kids a day, however you may only be cooking for a few, perhaps only one. There are plenty of simple meals that can be prepared the night before or quickly the morning before you send your kids off to Camp Sugar for the day.

If you do chose to take advantage of the school cafeteria, demand that your school feeds your kids something healthy and nutritious, tell them you want your kids to eat brain food, not the pork and beans we used to eat as kids. 1 in 10 people in the United States are pre-diabetic with a majority of that number becoming diabetic within 10 years. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A DIABETIC. If you are diagnosed pre-diabetic, it can be turned around with diet and exercise. Your chances of becoming diabetic are incredibly less by dropping 7% of your body weight. Don't wait till its too late and don't let your kids tell people that their parents fed them Diabetes for breakfast and lunch... Love them instead, care for their health now.