Children's Lunch Boxes

See Jammy Dodgers blog 1st for the implications of high blood sugar. Read, remember and concentrate as much as your carb/wheat addled brains will.

Ok, so first there was the Glycemic Index. The carbohydrates you eat raise your blood sugar – and this index worked out by how much, by using white bread as a marker. Because there were problems with this system, it’s been replaced by a newer one called the Glycemic Load. This is an improvement because it takes into account both the fibre in the food and the realistic amounts of the food you eat. In the GI, carrots rate worse than pasta at raising blood sugar. This is patently rubbish, and indeed, under Glycemic Load, to raise blood sugar with carrots as much as you do with the average portion of pasta (5oz), you have to eat 7 full sized carrots at one sitting. Must be Eeyore’s birthday, I think.

On the Glycemic Load system, it’s recommended to eat foods that score under 100 in order to avoid excessively high blood sugar. Here are some lunch box numbers to get you into the GL picture:

1 slice of white bread has a load of 107. This is just one slice, so half a sandwich.

1 small bag crisps: 62

1 medium banana: 85

Peanut M&Ms – snack size pack: 43

Snickers Bar: 218

Carton of Orange Juice: 119

Coca-cola 12oz can: 218

1 rounded teaspoon white sugar: 28.

Remember, on the G Load system, it is recommended to eat foods that score under 100. Children have smaller bodies than we do. Therefore whatever they eat has more impact upon them than it does on us. So let’s just think about this. Does someone weighing 2 stones have less body mass than someone weighing 9 stone? So 1 teaspoon of sugar will have far more impact upon a child than it does upon an adult won’t it?

Breakfast:

Muesli 1oz: 95

Shredded Wheat 1 oz: 142

Puffed wheat 1 oz: 151

Instant oatmeal (cooked) 8oz: 154

Cornflakes 1oz: 199

If we eat a pile of sugar, our blood sugar soars and we feel as high as a kite for a little while. Then the blood sugar drops (apparently this happens over 4 hours) and we feel very hungry, frequently grumpy and quite unable to concentrate upon anything other than needing something to eat. It’s likely that all those around us feel the same. And at school, our children are constantly trying to learn new things – this is what school is all about, after all. Quite a task, really. Of course, if the child is too difficult, there is always Ritalin. So much easier than reducing the sugar load on the child.

It is a wonder that children can learn anything at all. So, if your child is rather difficult – or won’t go to bed at night, maybe you may have some ideas as to where to start. And it isn’t Ritalin.

Maybe the much villified Jamie Oliver was right on the money. Children should have a good school dinner. Don’t plant your addiction to starch onto them. Do you think there may be a blog on the way on this subject??