Want to give your kid a wholesome midday meal? Here are five tips that will help your child develop good-for-the-rest-of-your-life eating habits.

1. Go back to basics. Send milk and leave out juice. Milk is a great source of calcium and protein that growing bodies need. Forget the juice. Many fruit-flavored drinks contain lots of sugar and little fruit juice.

2. Choose real food. Pack a peanut butter, unprocessed chicken breast or tuna salad sandwich. Leave out processed sandwich meats and spreads. Bologna and salami are high in salt (four slices of salami, for instance, contain 400 milligrams of sodium—a third of the daily allowance for kids ages 4 to 8). Cut out the surplus sodium in processed sandwich meats and instead give your child high-quality protein to keep the energy flowing.

3. Make fruit the go-to dessert. Pack fresh fruit (bananas, apples and oranges pack well) or dried fruit (such as apricots or raisins). Avoid fruit snacks. Like fruit juices, fruit snacks contain little fruit and a lot of sugar.

4. Create your own trail mix. Stir up a batch of Cheerios, dried fruit and nuts and pack a small portion for each lunch. Besides minimizing sugar consumption (and saving money), the trail mix give kids an added dose of protein. You can also skip the expense of granola bars. Don't be fooled by the "whole grain" label on granola bars. From a nutrition perspective, granola bars are no better than most cookies.

5. Be picky when choosing crackers. Opt for crackers that are made from 100 percent whole grains (when checking labels, make sure whole grain is the first ingredient). Whole grain crackers contain less fat and provide fiber. And swim away from goldfish crackers: besides being low on fiber, they are high in food coloring, fat and sodium.

The teacher's job is to train young minds. Your job is to train your child's palate. If you teach your child to eat nourishing food on a daily basis, you will have done your child an enormous favor. The wholesome habits you ingrain will help your child become a productive, healthy adult. Good job, Mom and Dad.