For the first time ever I am faced this week with having to prepare a lunchbox for my little one to take to kindergarten. The challenge as always is how to get nutrition into her while providing enough incentive to eat it – the eternal conundrum! For a little girl who prefers white bread sandwiches and chocolate cupcakes, getting anything resembling whole grains into her is always difficult. However I’ve resorted to my usual trick of sneaking some extra nutrition into her old favourites – chocolate chip cookies – by using wholemeal flour and LSA along with the traditional ingredients.
Until now, the four year old has had a gentle schedule of afternoon kindi sessions for a couple of hours. However as from tomorrow it’s a longer day and I have to provide lunch. It’s a real lifestyle change – preparing a school lunch and I don’t know why but suddenly I feel like I have switched into the role of my mother – playing housewife and mum – more so than ever before. Anyway – the challenge now will be to fill her lunchbox with delicious and nutritious treats. These cookies are by no means a health food but they are a realistic way of creating something yummy that kids love and by substituting a few ingredients with a bit more nutrition, they are a healthier alternative to normal cookies. I reduce the sugar, replace white flour with wholemeal flour and add some LSA – for me it’s just about putting a little more goodness into her lunchbox.
The recipe I used is:
¾ cup of brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg
1.5 cups wholemeal flour
½ cup of LSA
1.5 cups of pure dark chocolate – the higher the cocoa content the better otherwise dark cooking chocolate drops are fine too.
Mix as you would with a normal cookie recipe. Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg, mix and then add dry ingredients and then the chocolate drops.
The recipe will be firm but if it seems too dry, add some milk. Press onto a baking tray and cook for 8 – 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Wholemeal four is a great source of vitamins and minerals – especially B vitamins – including Thiamine and niacin. The LSA provides soluble fiber with its mix of linseed, sunflower seeds and almonds ground into a fine meal. Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of vitamin E and linseeds are the richest known dietary source of phytoestrogens – otherwise known as lignans as well as omega 3 oils – the health benefits of which are well known.

WHile mum will focus on the nutritional benefits, the little ones just focus on the chocolate chips and sscoff them without realising there’s a few tricks hidden in them. A batch takes about five minutes to mix and no more than 15 minutes to bake – it’d take you longer than that to pop to the supermarket and pick up a premade packet of biscuits filled with twice the sugar and plenty of chemicals and preservatives.

Hope the little people in your life like these cookies as much as my four year old. My only problem is that I cant stop eating them either!

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