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Bring Lunch to Work; Eat Healthier & Smarter


weinoo

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I love bringing my own lunch, and when I don't have time I really miss it. I like Built neoprene lunch bags because they go flat when not in use. I like nalgene screw top containers from reuseit.com because they are leak-proof. I travel nowhere without a reuseit drawstring bag filled with snacks. These choices after long searches. I eat with a "real" fork poached from TWA first class a long time ago.

I carry my own food to work, on day trips, when travelling. I just went to Italy and brought two snack bags, one for the trip there and one for the trip back. Extremely useful. I HATE being dependent on airlines or airports for food. I LOVE picnics of every stripe.

Trader Joe's is the brown bagger's friend. Their frozen vegetables and frozen vegetable mixes are top-notch.

Hard boiled eggs and sliced beets.

Artichokes and mushrooms.

Black bean, corn, tomato, avocado salad,

Tuna with potatoes and green beans.

Tofu and TJ's balsamic vegetable mix.

On and on.

I like having a TJ organic low fat string cheese everyday and I have to have three fruits. I have nuts, cheese, dried fruit, olives.

I don't eat bread; I don't eat sandwiches.

I also often carry my own liquor, but that's another story . . .

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I like to bake nice things. And then I eat them. Then I can bake some more.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My wife( a police officer) takes the same friggen lunch to work everyday she works. PB & J, yogurt and fruit. Its always PB & J. Makes it easy for me. She likes it because it doesn't need to be kept cold. Personally, I cant eat PB & J without drinking a glass of milk too.

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My wife( a police officer) takes the same friggen lunch to work everyday she works. PB & J, yogurt and fruit. Its always PB & J. Makes it easy for me. She likes it because it doesn't need to be kept cold. Personally, I cant eat PB & J without drinking a glass of milk too.

Same "J" every time? Also, is "J" for jelly or jam?

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My wife( a police officer) takes the same friggen lunch to work everyday she works. PB & J, yogurt and fruit. Its always PB & J. Makes it easy for me. She likes it because it doesn't need to be kept cold. Personally, I cant eat PB & J without drinking a glass of milk too.

Same "J" every time? Also, is "J" for jelly or jam?

Pretty much. Grape(gag) jelly.

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We are both retired from outside jobs and so this is not a problem for us. Both brown-bagged it in the midst of others paying for lunches. Son Ken has always brown bagged it, again in the midst of the larger paying crew.

What floored and dismayed me in the extreme: we used to stay in a quiet motel in Utah with a small kitchenette and I would make us a salad or something similar every day which we would eat sitting at a picnic table under the ramada. The next table was the motel cleaning staff with their young children eating from Taco Bell or McDonald's or some other chain, everyday. I was gobsmacked. And saddened.

In my job I see this problem all the time. People in a tough financial state spending money that could be better assigned to another part of their lives... whether it's Taco Belch or the fanciest iPhone (and data plan) lots of money from the poor is misspent. If schools still had Home Ec, which they should, there might be a chance to show a better way.

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When I was in school and they did have Home Ec it was only for the girls. The boys had metal shop. woodworking shop and mechanical drawing. Home Ec. was basically "How to be a good little wife", and even boys like me taking the academic curriculum still had to take the three shop courses, because it's always good to have a trade to fall back on. Unfortunately while we were taking the courses, the trades were rapidly disappearing from the economy in So. Jersey.

For years I browned bagged my lunch. Day in day out it was a baked skinless drumstick, some celery, an apple and Kame rice crackers, cheese flavored. I would cook up to 16 drumsticks in advance, have the celery all scrubbed and cut in advance, and could have my lunch packed in a couple of minutes. I've been retired for 14 years and nine out of ten days I'm still eating that same boring lunch, but without the kame rice crackers lately. On Saturday nights I treat myself to a real lunch for dinner.

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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Our little one goes to a school that provides three options for lunch. You can either get a sandwich from Subway, a slice of pizza from the local pizza place, or one of 4 dishes from a Chinese Place. Like, beef and broccoli, or fried sesame chicken, a lo mein and something else and a can of soda. Because of this, she wants us to make her lunch every day. Unfortunately, there is no way to heat up anything so, she has to eat whatever we give her out of the fridge at the school.


Her lunch normally consists of, a sandwich. Tuna, pbj, ham, roast beef, or turkey. We use either bread from the bakery or whole grain. For snack she gets, almonds, nori sheets, a small sandwich baggy with doritos, carrots and celery with peanut butter, a clementine, a half a banana. Not all but, she gets at least two of these things. Occasionally we will send he into school with sushi but, the kids will bug her as it's gross to them. Even just the nori sheets raise attention.


For me and the wife, I usually bring lunch to work. Or more so, I do a shop for the week and put it in the fridge at my office. I buy these fruit containers for 2.99. It's pretty much the same price as if I were to make them at home. They last two days. I buy pistachios and almonds. I buy soy milk and cereal for the week. I buy deli meat and cheese and bread and keep it at work. I occasionally bring leftovers from Restaurants or Dinners I cook but, primarily, I like to eat leftovers at home for dinner where I transform them into something different.


I have a roast pork sandwich in the fridge from Dinner last night, i have been struggling since this morning not to eat it. I am giving myself until 1. My wife's assistant's Chinese grandmother makes my wife lunch every day. I envy her.


Most of my coworkers will head out and go to lunch.

Edited by basquecook (log)

“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted" JK

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Basquecook, just a cautionary note - be careful about how much nori you give your little one - I recently found that it can contain a lot of iodine, which could lead to thyroid problems (I wasn't getting enough iodine, since I cut down on salt and switched away from iodized salt years ago, but apparently it is possible to go overboard and get too much). Unfortunately, iodine content in nori is highly variable, and this content is not required on food labels: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-HealthProfessional/.

Back to the topic at hand, we usually bring in leftovers, which we can heat up as need be in the microwave. My husband is not a big sandwich fan, but I am (I make a Pullman loaf and cut the slices really thin so I don't eat too much bread), so if there's only one serving of a leftover, he gets that and I'll make a sandwich with whatever is on hand.

And I bring in sushi once a week! :smile:

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

It's electric. I am having my first lunch from it. I put in cold chicken stock, a package of shirataki noodles with tofu, a hard boiled egg, and 4 stalks of Romaine lettuce. Plugged the unit in when I got into work at 8:30, and it was hot and ready for 11:30!

Now, I can just leave the heating unit at work and take the inner container home to bring food next time. It has a tight fitting lid, so food should transport well.

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Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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My mini-crock pot shirataki noodle soup lunch today

LunchCrockPotNoodles1589.jpg

LunchCrockPot1590.jpg

Pictures are from this morning when I put the lunch together. With the slow and low cooking, the Romaine lettuce was done just right - still a bit of crunch to each stalk.

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Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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That's great news, Dejah. I bought one last week and haven't used it yet. The crockpot website sells additional canisters for $5/ea.

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"The main thing to remember about Italian food is that when you put your groceries in the car, the quality of your dinner has already been decided." – Mario Batali
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  • 3 weeks later...

What are the cannisters made of? Plastic? Do they have lids?

I kind of really really like the idea of cooking in this cubicle.

Reminds me of an elusive book I heard about on the radio and have never been able to track down (maybe it never got written) -- it was about all the ways people cook when there are no cooking facilities. Like in prisons. People make little stoves out of tin cans.

I like thinking about this concept

I like to bake nice things. And then I eat them. Then I can bake some more.

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What are the cannisters made of? Plastic? Do they have lids?

I kind of really really like the idea of cooking in this cubicle.

Reminds me of an elusive book I heard about on the radio and have never been able to track down (maybe it never got written) -- it was about all the ways people cook when there are no cooking facilities. Like in prisons. People make little stoves out of tin cans.

I like thinking about this concept

The insert canister is metal, and comes with a separate fitted lid in addition to the screw-on lid on the crock pot, which is plastic and has a handle. I use it most days, and will more now that "winter" is settling in.

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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