Mealbox Ideas To Ensure A Healthy Diet

Swati Bhushan, chief clinical nutritionist, Hiranandani Hospital, Vashi, shares some interesting ideas to keep your meals healthy and fresh this season

- Swati Bhushan

While it’s always a struggle when it comes to ensuring lunchbox ideas are fresh, as well as interesting, we have a few tricks to ensure you’re eating healthy this season.

Say yes to whole fruit and no to cut fruit:

At times, schools urge parents to provide a fruit and even salads in their child’s lunch box, taking a well-balanced meal into consideration. However, what we don’t realise is that the nutrients in these fruit and veggies, particularly if they’re cut up, get oxidised if stored for a longer time. Apart from the deterioration of its nutritional content, these cut fruit and veggies tend to attract infectious germs. Too much moisture and humidity in the air, particularly during the monsoons, can cause food to spoil quickly. Prevent packing raw or semi-cooked food, to keep infections at bay. It’s wise to provide uncut fruit like apples, bananas, peachs, pears, plums, jamuns and cherries, which are packed with various disease fighting antioxidants, and help boost your child’s immunity. Soak these fruit in a salt water solution or white vinegar water solution for five minutes and wash off with cold water. This will remove dirt, germs, and pesticide residue, if any. Avoid watermelons during this season, and avoid non-seasonal fruit as they tend to get infested with worms.

Say yes to stir fried vegetables and no to sandwiches: