Balancing The Ingredients In The Tiffin For Today’s Generation

My six-year-old kid and I visit McDonald.

Prompt comes my question, “So what do you want to order for yourself?”

Kid says out loud, “I am in the mood for something junk today. So, I want to order fries and shake.”

Before I could intervene, he adds on while hugging me “Don’t worry mom, I know I need my portion of protein. Thus, will have daal at night.”

I nod and stand in line while thinking of which daal to make that night.

Just then the alarm clock rings.

I wake up with a smile thinking of how conscious my kid is, and congratulate myself that I have done my job of laying the fundamentals in his gray matter.

Alas, it was a dream!

Challenges

As they say, that each day is a challenge. But being a parent in today’s era is even more challenging.

Living in a western country where pizza and pasta are the usual tiffin choices by moms or the cafeteria. Life becomes more challenging for a mom who wants to balance each meal with the correct proportions of protein and carbs. I remember my school days when roti and sabzi was the meal each afternoon. As we all would open our lunch boxes, aroma of different sabzi’s would fill our cafeteria, as we would wipe the oil from the sides of our lunch boxes.

Happily, we would share and gobble our food and rush to the playground for some more added fun.

Sure, the fun of playing is still there in today’s era, but the choice of food puts me in a dilemma of what to offer him each noon. Roti, sabzi and daal, are still our staple diet, but that has now been restricted to just dinner.

Since spoon or fork is the tool to ingest the food. Quinoa or Oats with vegetables are usually replaced with pasta during weekdays lunch. Grilled sandwiches filled with paneer and vegetables are served occasionally. Stuffed rotis sliced into four pieces also serves well while helping to balance the meal with the right amount of carbs and protein.

Conclusion

Today’s children are well informed even though they are young, thanks to the various forms of media. However, it is up to the parents to keep them grounded on their values and point them in a direction of their welfare by helping them make the right choices. They are like those soft molds, which can be molded into any form, but alas the media tends to mold them quicker than the parents. Thus, testing the patience skill of each parent of today as he/she tries to reinforce their guidelines in their children.

My 2 cents

Today the children are aware of the snacks around them. They are quick to read the labels that the food comes in, which make me realize the necessity of having those labels printed on each food item.

Making them aware of what they ingest and talking about the different options while giving them an over-view of the culture they come from while trying to make a stern point on it, will help the child look no further.

Ruchira Khanna is the author of Choices published on Amazon. She blogs at http://abracabadra.blogspot.com/