Nourish little tummies with a gut-friendly lunchbox

Mornings are busy so here are some simple tips for quick, and healthy lunchbox updates:

It’s important to make sure we’re nourishing little tummies with gut-friendly snacks and meals that even the fussiest kids will eat. Why gut-friendly? The gut microbiome – the community of bacteria living inside each and every one of our guts – has links to many different health benefits.

It’s important for all of us – and especially developing tummies – that we fuel our gut bacteria with the very best foods they enjoy munching on.

When we eat these gut-friendly foods (prebiotics), we nourish our gut bugs and help them to produce beneficial substances that can contribute to protecting our gut lining, helping our immune system, assist digestion, and many other important bodily functions.

Prebiotics are key for healthy tummies, and we can find prebiotics in many, every day and affordable foods. Essentially, a prebiotic is something that can’t be broken down by your digestive juices and ends up in your gut microbiome to nourish the helpful bacteria, so it's important to have the right types of prebiotics for it to function at its best. 

This is where ‘eating the rainbow’ comes in, as there are so many different beneficial gut fuels for your bacteria. Eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains, beans, legumes, and nuts and seeds are key to a healthy diet. But how do we get our fussy little ones to eat such variety? Here are some easy, affordable, and gut-friendly ideas… 

TIP 1
Make vegetable sticks more exciting by including a tasty dip in their lunchbox. Simple guacamole (smashed avocado and lemon juice) is an easy to prepare dip, or you could opt for hummus – both will help encourage children to eat their veggies at school.

TIP 2
Throw in some cooked and chilled edamame beans in their lunch box. Kids love to pop the beans from their shells! This fun yet nutritious snack is packed full of gut-nourishing compounds that both you and your little people will love.

TIP 3
Pack a delicious pesto pasta salad as an alternative to sandwiches and wraps. When pasta has been cooked and cooled prior to eating, it increases the amount of resistant starch – a type of prebiotic that helps the good bacteria flourish and produce helpful substances for our health. (This same principle also works with rice, so next time you have leftover fried rice – pop some into a lunchbox for them to enjoy cold the next day).

Healthy lunchbox treat
We understand that all children are different and that it can be tricky to get your child to eat a wide variety of gut-friendly food, which is why we created our Baba West Fruit Bears. Our Fruit Bears are ideal as a lunchbox addition, as they are made with the whole fruit, with no added sugar or artificial preservatives or flavours, which means they count towards one of your child’s 5-a-day! They are also high in fibre, which plays an important role in supporting bowel movements and acting as a food source for the friendly bacteria in their gut.

To make sure our Fruit Bears are giving your child all the gut support they need (whilst also being delicious!), we coated the Bears with a friendly bacteria called Bacillus coagulans GBI-30 6086 (BC30TM). BC30 is a friendly-bacteria that is commonly used in food and drink products due to its hardy nature to survive the manufacturing process. BC30 has been used in over 25 studies to support digestive and immune health in kids and adults (trust me, you will want to eat the Bears too!).