Why you shouldn't make a bento box for lunch for your kids? That is obvious after reading this article!
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For years, parents have been bombarded with tips and tricks to get the kids to eat. Plates empty, bellies full. Many cookbooks and websites full of childproof recipes. Because dinner should not only be healthy and tasty, it should also be varied. The Dutch pot is really passé.
Children also have to keep up with the latest trends. In addition to a meatball, children should also eat sushi and quinoa, according to the culinary experts. Now a little variety is never bad, I regularly try to present something new to challenge the taste buds (usually without success, by the way). You would almost feel guilty these days if your child served a meatball and red cabbage. But now that schools have recently reopened, the marketing gurus believe they have found a new weakness for parents, the Bento box.
The supermarkets and websites are flooding (or is it brainwashing?) us with new ideas for lunch. It starts with the name. It is no longer the lunch or lunch box but the Bento box.
A brown bam with cheese is apparently no longer enough for our offspring, no, whole meals have to be taken to school. All ideas and recipes for a Bento lunch box. It should also be tasty not only for the stomach but also for the eye. The slices may no longer be cut in half, but must be cut in the shape of a star or heart.
It shouldn't just be cheese or sausage, no, it should be a Club Sandwich with cream cheese and cucumber. Preferably with a stick through it, because besides being useful (a club sandwich falls apart quickly), it is just very nice and cozy. Or you can partially crush the bread and roll it up nicely, roll up spelled spinach pancakes yourself or as a last option, use ready-made wraps. That rolled up, that eats so well and a child would not be able to resist.
In addition to the bamtjes cut out with hearts or a spinach pancake/wrap, a bowl of raw vegetables (preferably cut out in the shape of a rose or something) with a bowl of dip should be added (homemade dip of course). And don't drink a carton (it indeed contains a lot of sugar!!) but an ecologically responsible drinking cup with a smoothie or cloudy apple juice. Oh yes… You can also opt for a salad with olives and feta.
It has partly come over from Japan, where mothers get up at least an hour earlier to prepare the so-called Bento box. The mothers there poke each other's eyes out by making the lunch box as beautiful as possible. Healthy infant food alone is no longer good enough. On Intragram, the mothers trump each other at breakneck speed with the most beautiful creations. If you can't participate, you seriously have a social problem there.
So after seeing and reading all the innovative ideas for the Bento box, I gave in. My poor children, they will no longer be victims of a lunchbox with boring colorless contents! Starting this school year, they will be delighted every day with an extremely carefully composed Bento box full of inspiring food and alternating colors. It will be a feast for the eyes and stomach!
I picked a few meals. I start with (ready-made) wraps that I lovingly spread with cream cheese. One on which slices of organic turkey breast are draped and the other expertly sprinkled with MSC salmon chips. I roll them up very tightly. I cut one crosswise in half, the other in thick slices.
For another tin - ehh box - I make a club sandwich in the shape of a star. For fun I put a toothpick through it, with colored strings attached. It does indeed look nice in the largest compartment of the Bento box. I smile happily. The raw vegetables will be placed in another compartment of the Bento box. I'm going all out. Make stars from an apple, balls from a carrot (cutting a rose is just a bit too much for me) and add a few blueberries to complete the color palette.
I'm on a roll because I remember that I don't just put it in the box, no, I string them on a stick. How unique! Finally, I make a spinach smoothie for the side and pour it into the ecologically friendly drinking cup. Lovingly I put the three-course meal in the backpacks of the apples of my eye.
Before I can ask during the evening meal how I liked the responsible, varied, colorful Bento box, they start talking about it themselves. How nice, I don't even have to ask about it myself, they must have been overjoyed and all the friends must have looked jealous at the contents of the lunch box!
Nothing turned out to be less true. It was too little and not really tasty. huh? Wasn't it a taste sensation? And were there no jealous glances? Didn't you like anything then? Well the turkey breast wrap might have been better without cheese spread, and the salmon wrap might have been better without salmon. The club sandwich did go down in one bite (didn't see it being star shaped) and was gone in no time. It was far too little.
They had pricked themselves on the sticks. My second question why they had plasters on their fingertips, I didn't have to ask anymore † In an effort to get the raw vegetables off the stick, almost everything flew through the air and onto the ground. A child slipped on a carrot bulb and was left with a bruised ankle. The blueberry that didn't fall to the ground was sour. The spinach smoothie stained like crazy. The remaining teachers were not amused.
The next morning I stay in bed for an hour longer, quickly spreading about three or four delicious brownies with cheese and sausage. Water in the ecological drinking cup and off to school. I've slept in more and the kids aren't starving anymore. Everyone happy. And I'm also so glad I don't live in Japan!!
Shutterstock photo bento lunch box by Elena Veselova
