"With kids and lunchboxes, I think it is a mindfield," Aoife tells RTÉ LifeStyle, "All of the food industry and food manufacturers target children. I would say that any food that targets children, is not suitable for children." Fair point.
For example, she's quick to point out firstly that children's yogurts often have as much, if not more sugar than adult versions. She also believes that we need to get better at reading labels rather than relying on the person or company selling the product.
However it's not all doom and gloom - white bread, for example isn't off the menu or at least, not completely. Everything is okay in moderation: "They don't have to eat healthy food all of the time, we want higher fibre foods but its okay to eat white bread every so often.
She does say though what does need to be in the average lunchbox, every day: ""I think when we look at a healthy child's lunchbox, we need to see a piece of fruit in there, we need to see some vegetables. Ideally if its bread we want brown, rather than white all of the time."
Secondly, bread is an important one: "I would say think about volume - those bread rolls can often have three or four slices of bread in it, so stick to bread."
Finally, when it comes to drinks, what's the advice? "Stick to water and milk - the only drinks suitable for children and that's a really, really important message for children.
"A lot of parents think that giving children fruit juice is a good idea but fruit juice is very high in sugar so we still want children eating fruit rather than drinking fruit juice and that's an important thing to keep in mind." Absolutely.You can find out more about Aoife's advice/Food Plan and Operation Transformation 2015 here
Watch our video above with Aoife Hearne.
