The Orange office launched the Healthy Lunch Box website on Tuesday with a morning tea full of recipes from the site. 

The website features an interactive lunchbox builder, plus tips and tricks to save time, promote food safety, get children involved, practical packing and adding variety to school lunches. 

There is also a healthy swaps section to help parents replace unhealthy lunchbox snacks for healthier and cheaper alternatives and as many schools requests nut-free lunchboxes, no recipes contain nuts.

Program facilitator Chris Stanger made banana pikelets, served with yoghurt, honey and berries, with the help of her granddaughter, Ava Elmes. 

“There was a bit of concern about the wholemeal aspect because it has a stronger taste and my family doesn’t usually use wholemeal, but they taste really nice,” she said.

“There’s no sugar – it uses mashed banana and no butter, so it’s very low-fat, low-GI and high-fibre.”

Ms Stanger said healthier recipes often carried a reputation for being more expensive, but it was not the case.

Twelve-year-old Phoebe Markwick made vegetable sushi as her contribution, cooking the rice and cutting the vegetables before rolling them in seaweed wraps. 

“I like to eat sushi,” she said. 

Her mother, and Cancer Council facilitator, Fiona Markwick said many of the recipes were freezer-friendly to be used over a number of days, or even as a leftover lunch from the previous night’s dinner. 

“It’s about providing people with easy choices and that’s why the website is so good,” she said. 

“It can be really fun involving children in recipe selection and there’s minimal preparation.”

The website aims to establish lifelong eating habits, help prevent cancer, and improve the state’s statistics, where 22 per cent of children are overweight or obese, only 7 per cent eat enough vegetables and 67 per cent eat enough fruit.  

It is part of the Eat It To Beat It program.