Tanner News

Nov. 17 is National Healthy Lunch Day. One simple (and affordable) step to better health is to bring a good-for-you lunch from home. Here’s how:

1. On the weekend, decide what you will eat for lunch for the week and add it to your grocery list. That way, it’s quick and easy to grab healthy choices when you pack your lunch.

2. Consider batch cooking on the weekend. Make a big pot of chili, soup or a big bowl of veggie salad. These will keep for a few days in the fridge and can be eaten throughout the week for lunch.

3. Take five minutes every night (or morning) to pack something healthy for the day.

4. Use portable containers — such as a lunchbox, thermos and various containers with tight-fitting lids — to pack and take your healthy lunch. Extra-small containers come in handy for single servings of peanut butter or salad dressings.

5. Remember food safety — if you don’t have access to a refrigerator to store your lunch, insert a cold pack into the lunch box and be sure to choose foods that will stay fresh and yummy from the time you pack them until it’s time to eat lunch.

6. For days you can’t pack lunch, keep some non-perishable healthy options at your desk, such as light tuna in water, whole wheat crackers, no-sugar-added canned fruit, popcorn and nuts.

Need recipe ideas? Tanner Health System’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiative launched the evidence-based Cooking Matters program to teach low-income residents how to improve nutrition by learning how to shop for and prepare healthy foods at home.

To learn about current classes taking place across the region, call 770.812.9871 or e-mail gethealthylivewell@tanner.org.