How to Choose a Lunch Box

By eHow Parenting Editor

Your choice of lunch box reflects your inner self. Are you strong and quirky like an old metal lunch box? Light and colorful like a plastic lunch box? Or soft and cozy like a lunch bag? Here are some things to consider when choosing your lunch box.

Things You’ll Need:

  • Brown Paper Sacks
  • Lunch Bags
  • Thermoses
  • Napkins
  • Plastic Food Containers
  • Plastic Forks
  • Plastic Spoons
  • Ice Packs
  • Lunch Boxes

Step1

Consider what you'll use the lunch box to carry. Use a tough metal or plastic lunch box to protect foods that can bruise, break or smush. If you plan to pack your foods in plastic containers, a soft lunch bag is fine.

Step2

Choose a lunch box or lunch bag that is large enough to accommodate all your items without having them move around when jostled.

Step3

Consider how you'll be handling your lunch box. If you'll have to fit it in your backpack or book bag, a hard exterior will keep your food from being squashed.

Step4

Purchase a soft-bodied, insulated lunch bag if you'll be carrying items that need to be kept cool or hot. Few hard-shell lunch boxes offer insulation.

Step5

Purchase an insulated beverage container (either with the lunch box or separately) just in case you decide to bring along a little soup, coffee or another beverage.

Step6

Think about the image you'd like to project to your coworkers and companions, and choose your lunch box accordingly. Most plastic and metal lunch boxes will carry images of some sort, including superheroes, cartoon characters and even political figures.

Tips for a healthy lunchbox


Read our tips on making successful sandwiches, adding something a bit different to lunchboxes and choosing healthier options.

On this page

Making sandwiches

Something different

Healthier alternatives to sweets

Drinks

Reducing salt, fat and sugar

Making sandwiches

Try to keep a selection of breads in the freezer for sandwiches. Then you can just take out what you need for one day's lunchbox and defrost it on a plate or in the microwave.

Using a different type of bread each day can make lunchboxes more interesting. Try granary, wholemeal and raisin bread, multi-grain and seed rolls, mini wholemeal baguettes, bagels and wholemeal pitta.

If your child refuses to eat brown bread at first, try buying 'whole white' sliced bread (white bread made with one-third wholemeal flour). Or you could make a sandwich from one slice of whole white bread and one slice of wholemeal/brown bread.

  • Always try to add a little salad to a sandwich.
  • To avoid soggy sandwiches, make sure that you dry salad with kitchen paper or a salad spinner before you add it to the sandwich. Or you could put cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes in a separate sandwich bag.
  • Try to use less butter or margarine and avoid mayonnaise if you can, or use lower-fat versions.
  • Pick low-fat sandwich fillings, such as lean meats, including ham or turkey, fish (such as tuna or salmon), cottage cheese, Edam, mozzarella, or sliced banana.

Something different

On cold days, you could give your child some soup in a vacuum flask, with some wholemeal or granary bread. If you have time, you could make your own soup - tomato, chicken and sweetcorn, and vegetable soup are healthy options that are quick and easy to make. You could add lentils and barley to thicken the soup but try to avoid adding salt. If you buy soup, try to choose varieties that are low in salt.

  • In the summer, salads are light and refreshing and full of essential vitamins and minerals. Try to include a variety of different salad vegetables - for example radish, grated carrot, spinach, tomato and spring onion. You could also sprinkle an assortment of seeds over the salad (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and pine nuts) or dried fruit such as sultanas, raisins or chopped apricots.
  • Make a rice salad using cooked brown rice and lentils - you could add chunks of cooked aubergine, pepper slices, chopped spring onions and pieces of cooked turkey or chicken. Pasta salads are also a good option. Try mixing cooked pasta with tuna and avocado, or chicken, sweetcorn, cherry tomato and spinach leaves.

  • Home-made pizza is also a great choice. Why not make a pizza together for an evening meal and save some for the next day's lunchbox? On the pizza base, put a tomato and basil sauce/paste, mozzarella cheese and plenty of chopped vegetables - peppers, onion, mushrooms and sliced courgettes. You could also make a mini pizza using a wholemeal muffin cut in half and topped with vegetables or ham. Toast this under a grill for a couple of minutes for a fun and different snack.

  • Try adding a slice of home-made Spanish omelette with potato, courgette and tomato, or broccoli and tomato quiche. You could also have these for an evening meal and then save a bit for the next day. If you make your own quiche, don't add salt. If you buy quiche, try to choose options that are lower in salt and fat.
  • Don't forget to add some vegetables to your child's lunchbox, such as cherry tomatoes, or sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery and peppers. Raw sugar snap peas are also a good choice because they are naturally sweet and crunchy.


Healthier alternatives to sweets

Fruit salad makes a great dessert. You could make an exotic version with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and grapes, or a more traditional version with apples, bananas, grapes and oranges. This will count towards your child's five daily portions of fruit and veg.

  • Try adding a handful of dried fruit, such as raisins, apricots, figs or prunes - these can also count as a portion of fruit and veg and this is a way to encourage your child to try new foods.

  • Try different desserts, such as stewed fruit (without added sugar). You could add a spoonful or two of natural yoghurt to the fruit, or sprinkle some rolled oats and seeds on the top for extra crunch.
  • Instead of cakes, chocolates and biscuits, try scones, currant buns (without icing) and fruit bread.

  • Make sure that your child gets enough calcium by adding a slice of cheese, yoghurt (preferably sugar-free or low in sugar) or rice pudding, choosing low-fat versions where possible.


Drinks

Always include a drink to go to keep your child hydrated and help them concentrate. Go for still/sparkling water, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, or unsweetened fruit juice.

Add a fruit smoothie made from natural yoghurt, mixed berries and maybe a dash of honey, or maybe a home-made milkshake (try mixing semi-skimmed milk with puréed strawberries or raspberries).

Reducing salt, fat and sugar

When you're choosing foods for your child's lunchbox, always try to watch out for the levels of salt, fat and sugar. If you're buying foods, you can find out how much salt, fat and sugar they contain by looking at the label.

Reducing salt

  • Always check food labels for the salt or sodium content. If sodium is listed and you want to convert this to salt, you multiply the sodium figure by 2.5.
  • A product is high in salt if it contains 1.5g or more of salt per 100g or 0.6g or more of sodium per 100g. A product is low in salt if it contains 0.3g or less of salt per 100g or 0.1g or less of sodium.
  • Cut down on foods that are often high in salt, such as processed meat, cheese, and smoked fish.
  • If you make your own foods (e.g. pasta, quiche, and bread) for your child's lunchbox, try to use less salt or leave it out altogether.
  • When making sandwiches, go easy with sauces and pickles because these are usually very high in salt.

Reducing fat

  • Always check the food label for fat content. As a guide, a food is high in fat if it contains 20g or more of fat per 100g and is low in fat if it contains 3g or less per 100g. A food is high in saturated fat (also known as saturates) if it contains 5g or more per 100g and is low in saturated fat if it contains 1.5g or less per 100g.
  • Use butter, margarine, mayonnaise or salad dressings sparingly, because these can be high in fat, or choose low-fat spreads instead.
  • Use full-fat cheese or cheese spreads sparingly.
  • Watch out for meat pies, pasties, fried foods and salami, because these tend to be high in fat.
  • Choose lean cuts of meat and take the skin off chicken.

Reducing sugar

  • Always read the label of any food you are buying for your child's lunchbox. Some foods can contain sugar that you might not expect to contain it.
  • A product is high in sugar if it contains 15g or more of sugar per 100g. A product is low in sugar if it contains 5g or less per 100g.
  • Watch out on the ingredients list for other words used to describe sugar, such as sucrose, glucose (syrup), fructose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar. The higher up the ingredients list they come, the higher in sugar the foods are.
  • For drinks, go for still/sparkling water, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, unsweetened fruit juice and/or smoothies or yoghurt drinks, rather than squashes and sweet fizzy drinks.
  • Instead of sweets and chocolate, give your child fresh or dried fruit to snack on. Alternatively, you could try sunflower and pumpkin seeds or vegetable sticks and cherry tomatoes.
  • If you bake at home for your child's lunchbox, cut down on the sugar that you add. Try using fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, raisins or fruit purées to add sweetness.

Thursday 28 January 2010

Lunch Box

By Brenda Layman

Lunch on the go can be as tasty and nutritious as a home-cooked and served meal. Busy students and employees don’t have to depend on fast-food and cafeteria fare. With a bit of planning, lunches brought from home can make that midday break something special.


Convenient containers and insulated carriers allow greater versatility than ever when it comes to carrying food. Changing up the lunch routine with bountiful brown bag repasts or tempting lunch box fare provides healthier diets along with more enjoyable and cost-conscious eating.

The best meals on the go meet certain criteria. They are nutritious, convenient, appropriately portioned, and appetizing. Instead of buying fast food, which can be expensive and high in fat, sodium, and calories, folks can control the quality of home-packed foods. It’s easier to ensure that foods prepared at home are kosher, organic, or locally grown.

Fluffy, white sandwich buns can be replaced with whole-grain bread. Fat-filled fries may, technically, be considered a vegetable, but crisp salad greens are a better choice for good health. Strapping young athletes can carry hearty meals that don’t leave them hungry, while children and others with small appetites won’t waste food they can’t finish. Best of all, lunches made at home and packed with care have an appeal that mass-produced meals can’t match.

Pack Lunches that Maximize Nutrition

Two good guidelines for lunchbox selections are to include at least three food groups and to avoid foods that are high in calories but low in nutritional value, like bags of chips or prepackaged sweets. Such foods take up a lot of room in the lunch kit, and they don’t pull their weight in terms of food value. Children tend to eat desserts and snack foods first and often they have no appetite for the rest of the meal. An inventory of the contents of a school lunchroom trash bin will yield shocking results. Sandwiches, vegetables, and fresh fruits are packed by loving parents, then carried to school only to be thrown out with the rubbish! Wasted money and lost nutrition can be minimized with a different approach. Lunches that contain a protein, a whole grain, and a fruit or vegetable, omitting salty chips and sweets, will increase the likelihood that hungry children will eat the nutritious food that is sent. When parents just can’t resist including a treat, a single small cookie or candy provides a little touch of sweetness without taking over lunchtime. Even better, parents can teach children to pack their own lunches, providing lessons in nutrition while encouraging independence and positive decision-making skills. A child who has created and packed her own lunch can enjoy both good food and a sense of accomplishment.

Home Packed Lunches Allow Portion Control

In restaurants, people with small appetites are often confronted with more food than they want, and end up wasting part of the large portions. When children encounter portions larger than their appetites demand, they usually just throw away the leftovers. Very young children may balk at eating anything when they are faced with portions that appear overwhelming. Folks with large appetites, such as teens, pregnant and lactating women, and people whose work or leisure activities are physically demanding, will find average cafeteria portions too small. In short, portion size is rarely one-size-fits-all. Packing lunches at home gives complete control over quantity as well as quality. Half a sandwich may be an appropriate serving for a young child or his petite grandmother. The high-school linebacker or hard-working builder can wrap up a hearty submarine sandwich stuffed with protein. Large portions of salads, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grain breads provide a lot of satisfaction with minimal calories.

Packing Lunches Saves Money and Time

Packing lunches at home is a more economical choice. Bringing lunch from home is less costly, whether it goes to school or to work. Foods can be bought in bulk or even home-grown, eliminating a great deal of expensive packaging and handling. Adults who don’t have children’s meals to consider will still be motivated to plan nourishing dinners that can double as lunches when they consider the savings involved. Keeping track of money spent in restaurants and cafeterias for just one month and comparing that figure to the cost of bringing lunches from home will reveal just how cost-effective lunch box repasts can be. When the cost of transportation to and from restaurants is added to the price of restaurant meals, their actual price is even higher. Enjoying the convenience of a packed lunch also yields extra time during the lunch break for an invigorating walk or just a few moments of relaxation.

Appetizing Presentations Make Lunches More Appealing

The Japanese have long regarded the packed lunch as an opportunity to create meals that are visually appealing as well as portable and healthful. Japanese lunch boxes called bento are popular with adults and children alike. A bento is a compartmentalized box. Traditionally, half of the box is filled with rice. The remaining compartments are filled with proteins such as egg, sausage, or fish, and vegetables. Apples or tangerines are frequently used for desserts. Apricot is often added to the box, as this fruit is believed to keep rice fresh. Japanese families prepare dinner meals with the bento in mind, taking care to include foods that can be put aside and packed for the next day’s lunches. Mothers take great care with the arrangement of food in bentos, frequently cutting sausages or other foods in patterns and shapes that resemble animals or flowers.

People from other cultures can take the bento concept and make it their own. Using color, shape, and flavors in ways that stimulate interest and appetite, families can make lunch creation a fun, shared activity. Children will enjoy creating “Ants on a Log,” celery sticks filled with peanut or soynut butter and dotted with raisins. Using cookie cutters to make sandwich bread into fun shapes is another fun idea for children’s lunches. Bread scraps can be saved for poultry dressings or cubed and toasted to make salad croutons.

Convenient Packaging Enhances Packed Meals

Stylish, insulated food carriers hold lunch items securely without the traditional brown-bag issues involving bruised bananas or sandwiches that have been squashed flat by apples. Resealable sandwich containers, wide-mouthed insulated jars, and small, reusable containers for condiments and dressings make it easy to include non-traditional lunchbox choices such as tossed salads, soups, and sandwiches with juicy tomatoes and other moist ingredients. Departing from the old-fashioned trilogy of bologna, peanut butter, and cheese sandwiches opens up a whole new world of portable lunch selections. With the great containers available today, the sky’s the limit when it comes to dreaming up imaginative take-along meals. These containers also cut down on the trash that is generated from packaging on convenience foods and frozen meals.

Entrepreneurs Tammy Pelstring and Amy Hemmert have developed a company called Laptop Lunches. The two women met in a new mothers group in 1995 and became friends and jogging partners. In 2001, they realized that there was a need to provide convenient alternatives to the commercially packaged foods that children were bringing to school. They imagined convenient, economical food containers that would be appealing to kids. After conducting a nationwide survey and finding strong support for their idea, they developed Bento-ware. Bento-ware is manufactured in California from plastics that are FDA-approved for food use. The outer containers are fitted with smaller containers to hold different foods. A website and newsletter compliments the containers by providing recipes, menu ideas, an online store, and a wealth of other information to keep Bento-ware users happily packing attractive, tasty, nutritious, and nearly waste-free lunches. For more information about Bento-ware, visit their website at http://www.laptoplunches.com/ContactUs.html. The site is also a great source of lunch suggestions that anyone can use, whether or not they decide to purchase Bento-ware. What makes a bento box differ from a plastic tub of leftovers is presentation, not the container.

Planning meals so that leftovers are available for lunches is both clever and economical. When the whole family joins in the planning, important lessons about wise use of time and money are learned. Creating lunches from a variety of fresh ingredients also gives meals a pleasing appearance. Fruits and vegetables, not packaging, provide appetizing color. Convenience foods often rely on attractive, colorful packaging for visual appeal. The food inside rarely compares to the “serving suggestion” pictured on the box. With lunches packed at home, the food inside will be exactly as expected. Anticipating a lunch that is guaranteed to look appetizing, taste good, and satisfy hunger without straining the budget makes lunch more than just a food break. Packing well-planned meals can make lunchtime a pleasant oasis in anyone’s busy day.

Brenda Layman is a freelance writer who lives in Pickerington, Ohio, with her husband of 29 years, Mark. She is a fishing enthusiast (fanatic?) who firmly believes in the healing power of the human spirit. When she is not on the water or in the woods, Brenda spends her time writing for Greenmaple Wellness Inc. and Ohio Valley Outdoors magazine. Brenda is also the author of Song of Joy, a Guide to Recovery from Sorrow.
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