Tel Aviv Municipality has decided to launch a new project encouraging parents to make sandwiches for children to eat at school. As part of the project, well-known chefs volunteered to create distinctive sandwich recipes for children. Called "Outside the Box," the project aims to encourage healthier eating and reduce junk food consumption. The municipality set the requirements for the recipes the chefs would prepare:
What the sandwiches should look like
The sandwiches must meet the following criteria:
- Easy to make
- Appealing to children
- Healthy and nutritious
- Made with readily available ingredients
- Suitable for different groups
Chefs' recipes for every child
The municipality also challenged the chefs to create recipes suitable for vegans, people with celiac disease, children with medical conditions and others. Male and female chefs, nutritionists, clinical dietitians and other researchers volunteered to take part in the process.
The recipes the chefs created also include lunchboxes with vegetables, fruit or other healthy snacks. In the end, the list reached 20 varied, specially developed recipes. If you are already curious about what was on the menu, grab a snack and read on:
Among the unusual and interesting recipes are a distinctive cauliflower omelet, scrambled tofu for vegan children, homemade labneh, beet tapenade and even banana pancakes. The project, ostensibly intended to encourage parents to make sandwiches their children would actually eat, drew several comments about its creative recipes: every one of them is certainly appetizing. Even so, the idea of making pancakes for children's midmorning school meal is rather surprising.
Criticism of the project
Criticism of the project addressed the importance of making sandwiches for children, including questions about how suitable these options are for children and teenagers. In some cases, they also turn out not to be the healthiest choices in the world. What is certain, though, is that they are all tasty and will have your children coming home from school full and satisfied, and above all a little more knowledgeable about culinary recipes.
So the next time your children come home with an untouched sandwich bag or once again ask for pocket money for their daily purchases at the school cafeteria, you can take a look at Tel Aviv Municipality's project and take a chance on their next sandwich. It is a way to get them used to homemade food and give them a few nutritional extras through meals whose ingredients you know, unlike what is sold at school.
