Preparing Bento Lunch Boxes for Your Kids 25.02.2016

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Kids tend to become picky eaters sometimes. They’d usually want to have just their favorites like fried chicken, hotdogs and eggs, and refuse to eat vegetables and other nutritious meals that you prepare to help them acquire their needed nutrients. Although vitamins and supplements, like Centrum and Flintstone gummies, can be easily added on your grocery list, we cannot deny the fact that the nutrients that they can get from having a healthy meal are more beneficial that all these.

We understand the struggle – you shouting while asking your little one to eat his/her meal or getting frustrated after seeing untouched packed lunch boxes because he/she does not want what you have prepared. So, how can you really make your child eat? How can you combat the fussy eater syndrome? One effective way is by preparing bento lunch boxes.

What is Bento?

Bento, a Japanese way of preparing food, is a packed meal placed on a box-type container, where you add healthy, tasty meals but ensuring that it provides balanced nutrition. Meaning, you’ll add small amount of rice or bread, meat, vegetables and fruits for dessert inside a box, to ensure that your child gets to consume all the food groups advised by the paediatricians. But, there’s a twist. A bento box has two types: a practical everyday bento and a special/occasional bento that has been carefully designed to become aesthetically pleasing to your little one’s taste buds. For picky eaters, a special bento box is ideal so as to entice them to eat everything you have prepared. Here are some examples:

Bento has become trendy worldwide. In fact, a lot of bloggers have arisen to share their food art and their tips on how they plan their grocery list to ensure that they provide their children sumptuous and alluring meals all the time. In fact, they have proven how it has changed their children’s eating habits. It has also provided them that “secured feeling” that their children eat healthy meals – something without additives or harmful ingredients that are usually found on fastfood restaurants.

Prepping your Grocery List for Bento

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Now, it’s time to work on your grocery list! If you plan to create a bento lunch box, here are the materials that you will need:

• Rice molder – depending on your design, but usually, you can just lay the rice flat and just focus on the fruits and vegetables’ shapes
• Egg molder – add oomph to that plain-looking egg, you can make it look like a car or a bunny!
• Food picks – for bite-sized meats and fruits
• Cookie cutter – can be used to cut the bread and to add an image within
• Lunch box – preferably with layers and divisions
• Silicon cupcake molders – can be used as a division

If you are unsure where to start, you can watch YouTube tutorials from renowned video bloggers and checkout Pinterest for amazing bento lunch box ideas. They will thoroughly guide you – from planning your grocery list to preparing your child’s meal.