Leading UK supermarkets, such as Tesco, have announced that they are offering free children’s meals with any purchase at their supermarket cafes during the school summer holidays to help families struggling with the cost of living crisis.
This comes after reports last week stating government advice to feed their children on discounted menus comprising ultra-processed junk food over the summer holidays.
Coupled with food inflation, it has been recently evidenced by ‘Smart Food’ solution, yfood, that a third of parents (27%) have become accustomed to poor dietary habits because they are too tired to cook a substantial meal, and a further 16% agreed that they cannot do a full food shop.
Supplying your body with 26 of your key essential nutrients in one drink, food-tech innovators yfood are experts on how to continue to prioritise a nutritionally balanced diet despite being strapped for time. For this reason, they have outlined below some healthy and efficient meal-prepping tips for time-poor parents.
Keep them fuller for longer
Base the main lunchbox item on foods like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. Choose wholegrain where you can for the extra fibre that helps keep your child stay fuller for longer. With colourful fresh summer veggies, cold pasta salad is a great option to make using leftover ingredients, or it’s easy to make ahead of time and feast on all week.
Cut back on fat
Sandwiches are easy to make and can be healthy if picking lower-fat fillings – like lean meats (including chicken or turkey), fish (such as tuna or salmon), lower-fat spread, reduced-fat cream cheese and reduced-fat hard cheese. And try to avoid using sauces such as mayonnaise.
Always add veg
Cherry tomatoes, or sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery and peppers all count towards their 5-a-day. Adding a small pot of reduced-fat hummus may help with getting kids to eat vegetables.
Switch the sweets
Swap cakes, chocolate, cereal bars and biscuits for low-fat yoghurts or bite-sized fruit pieces. Summer fruits such as cherries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries are some of the freshest fruits that can be enjoyed at this time of the year.
Noel Bollman, CEO/co-founder of yfood, discusses how their smart food solution can help those who are strapped for time:
“Healthy eating can be difficult, especially when on the go, because of lack of accessibility to good quality food. We actually did some research recently that found that over 40% of Brits only eat junk food when they are out and about which is unsurprising given the raft of options we have access to now.
“For those who are really strapped for time, Smart Food and complete food products and protein shakes are a great option to carry around. These nutritionally complete drinks, bars and powders have a full nutrient profile whilst being filling, flavoursome, and are readily available so no meal prep is required! Products such as yfood drinks don’t even need to be refrigerated, which means you can have them with you quite literally wherever you go.”
What is ‘Smart Food’ and how can it help?
yfood occupies a yet unheard of nutritional category named ‘Smart Food’, a concept, still very much in its infancy which aims to raise awareness for balanced nutrition that is appropriate to all life situations. Utilising future-facing scientific innovation, yfood is decisively driving the advancement of Smart Food with the expansion of scientific methods and incorporates the use of new technologies.
