Hey, I'm Dr. Josh Axe and welcome to Transformation TV.
This week I'm going to be talking about healthy lunch ideas.
It's a question I get all the time.
It's really hard today.
Society has made it hard to eat healthy out, and specifically for kids going to school
today.
Maybe you're a person that works a lot and you really just find it pretty hard to get
a good healthy lunch.
So what I'm going to do is go over the top ten tips for finding a good school lunch.
The first thing I want to talk about, though, is what not to do for school lunches for you
and for your kids.
The number one worst thing you could do for lunch is buy a Lunchable.
I know this seems like the most convenient, easy thing you can do, and it may be, but
this stuff is horrible.
If you really want to eat healthy, you've got to learn how to read food labels.
When I look at this right here, this Lunchable, it contains crackers, ham, cheese, and then
a nice little side of dessert of chocolate pudding, and then some fruit punch.
So it has the word 'fruit' in it, so it must be healthy.
Let me read some of the ingredients here in this Lunchable.
Number one ingredient, sugar.
All right.
And then it has natural flavors, which means fake food.
It has fat-free chocolate pudding made from skim milk, sugar, modified food starch, and
sodium alginate, calcium phosphate, artificial colors, and artificial flavorings.
Then it has ham with added sodium, added sugar to the ham, like ham needs sugar, and natural
and artificial flavorings.
Then we go to the cheese here.
Part skim milk, and then it has artificial preservatives and other cheese cultures.
The next thing here is the crackers.
It's unbleached flour and soybean oil and sugar and partially hydrogenated cottonseed
oil.
There is nothing good in this entire meal.
It's full of fake food.
You want to stay completely away from it.
Typically, a lot of times we can go out to eat at places like fast food restaurants,
or a lot of times we skip lunch, but those are not what you want to do for lunch.
Lunch is a really important meal of the day.
Here's the other thing that happens.
A lot of times you go out to eat during lunch, and you end up passing out at your desk because
you go into the 2:00 or 3:00 coma because you loaded up on the carbs and the breads
and all these other things for lunch.
You know the feeling I'm talking about.
You roll around 3:00 and all of a sudden you're face down on the desk or you see your coworkers
and everyone is like zombies in the office because you ate the fake food for lunch.
The same thing happens with kids today.
They get all hyped up on sugar and it can cause ADHD or else they can't focus in school
because they're eating, again, bad lunch.
So lunch is a very important meal of the day.
Here's what you need to do.
Here are the top ten things to do for lunch.
Number one: Get some sliced organic natural turkey and put it on Ezekiel bread.
Ezekiel is a natural sprouted bread.
It's a good option.
You want to use that instead of other breads.
So number one, organic sliced turkey on Ezekiel bread.
The number two thing you can do is pack a big salad.
Salads are great.
Again, you can mix it up and do a lot of different sorts of salads, like a Greek salad.
But do a natural salad.
You can add some chicken to it, maybe with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, but do that
for lunch.
Another good healthy option is doing something like veggies and hummus.
You can pack lots of vegetables, whether it's carrots, cucumber, sliced bell peppers.
Make your own hummus or you can buy it.
Hummus is another great option.
The next thing you can do is chicken salad on a bed of greens.
I've got tons of chicken salad recipes on our website.
You can do curried turkey salad or regular chicken salad with Vegenaise.
But again, they're healthy chicken salad recipes.
That's another good option.
Another good thing you can do is fruit and nuts.
You could actually pack your own trail mix, things like almonds, dark chocolate, raisins,
dried apples, you can add some cinnamon and coconut in there.
I've got an antioxidant trail mix you can check out.
That's another great option.
That's number five.
Number six thing you can do is you can actually do something like a stir fry, like a chicken
stir fry.
Get some chicken, get some vegetables, stir those up together.
That's another great thing you can do.
There are also stores you can go to, places like Pei Wei or even P.F.
Chang's or some other places, you may be able to get some quick stir fry.
Just tell them to hold the MSG and just stick with the vegetables.
Do not go overboard on the rice.
A little bit of brown rice isn't going to be too bad.
Stay away from the white stuff.
Remember, white stuff, that is fake food.
Number seven thing to do is go to Whole Foods.
Go to a place where they have healthy lunch options and get almost anything on the menu
there, but go to Whole Foods or a place like Jason's Deli.
That's another good option.
Step number eight, what you can do is something like an apple and almond butter.
Almond butter, cashew butter, different nut butters, those are great options when it comes
to eating a healthy lunch.
Number nine is going to be do leftovers.
If you had something the night before that was healthy, make extra.
Actually, every time I cook food, I cook a double portion.
That way I have some to bring with me the next day to work or wherever I may be going,
or send it with your kids.
And the last thing, you can do like a turkey burger.
Do a grass-fed beef or a turkey burger, pack that for lunch, maybe bring it with a sweet
potato and some sliced veggies.
Another great option.
If you want some more ideas, you can look at my 25 tips on what to actually pack for
your kids at school.
You can check out the cooking videos on the site.
We've got all sorts of resources for you guys to eat healthy lunches.
But remember, read food labels.
So again, when you're thinking about sending a Lunchable with your kids at school, don't
do it.
Again, brown-bag it, do some healthier options, it's going to be a much better option when
it comes to your health and your kids' long-term health.
So that's my piece on healthy lunch ideas.
So now what I'd like to do is just answer some of your questions on Facebook.
One of the questions I got here recently from Summer.
She asked on Facebook, "Why is almond butter better than peanut butter?"
This is a great question.
I get questions about peanut butter and peanuts all the time.
Just so everyone realizes, and you may already be aware of this, peanuts are very, very allergenic.
There are a lot of people today who have allergies to peanuts.
Actually, a lot of schools don't allow kids to bring peanuts into schools because it's
like bombs are going off, so many kids are allergic to peanuts.
And you also look at, actually I saw something recently where Delta was looking at banning
peanuts and start doing bagged cashews and almonds instead, because so many people are
allergic.
Here is why so many people are allergic to peanuts.
When people grow peanuts it's very close to the ground and it's very moist.
What happens is almost all peanuts contain mold.
Most people aren't necessarily allergic to peanuts; they're allergic to mold.
There's a type of a peanut you can buy, if you still want to do something like a peanut
butter, that is not going to have the mold in it and they're called Valencia Peanuts.
You can get Valencia Peanuts or Valencia Peanut Butter at most health food stores, and you're
going to find that in the organic section.
Valencia Peanuts are actually grown hanging in a tree so they're not going to be close
to the ground and they're not going to contain all the mold.
Also, another thing is that peanuts are also higher in Omega 6 fats.
They're not going to have as many of the Omega 3 fats or Omega 9 fats, which we really need.
Most people have way too many Omega 6's which causes inflammation in your body.
So here's what you can do.
Almond butter is good because it has the Omega 9 fats.
Walnuts are great because they have those good Omega 3 fats.
You're better off switching to another type of nut rather than a peanut to get those healthy
Omega 3's and the healthy Omega 9 fats.
Great question, Summer.
Thanks so much for your question on Facebook.
If you've got a question for me, remember, go onto my Facebook Fan Page.
Just look up Dr. Josh Axe, or go to the link on DrAxe.com.
We've got a whole health community online.
Also, once you watch this video, make sure you share with your friends on Facebook, tweet
it out there, send it to a friend.
If you know some friends are not eating healthy lunch, make sure you spread the message.
We're working on transforming the world together when it comes to health.
So thanks for tuning in this week.
I'll be back next week.
Remember, transform your health this week.