Packing a Lunch

Several employees have written to say that they need advice about low-calorie, low-fat, easy lunches to bring to work. Packing a lunch can often seem like a burden, and if we don't plan the night before, we can frequently find ourselves hurrying to buy an expensive and fatty lunch that we could otherwise have avoided. While there are many places in town to buy healthy and fresh meals (and you can email me privately for my favorites), this post is about bringing a lunch from home, saving money, and eating healthily.

From my own point of view, the time to prepare lunch for a workday is the night before. And if you are going to prepare lunch at home in the evening, this process can be facilitated by making dinner and having leftovers. So, if you are going to cook or prepare dinner, always make sure that you are making enough to have leftovers for the next day, although some meals lend themselves to leftovers better than others.

Some suggestions of meals that make easy leftovers:

• any type of cold salad
• grilled vegetables
• grilled chicken, fish, tofu or veggie products
• rice dishes
• stir-fries

So, if you don't have any leftovers or simply want to make a fresh, healthy lunch for work, what should you make? Here are more suggestions:

• Green salad with a scoop of tuna, chicken, egg or tofu salad
• Fresh chopped vegetables with hummus and whole grain crackers
• Cooked lentils and brown rice (a complete protein)
• A fruit smoothie (add Whey Protein) with a small container of almonds, nuts or seeds
• Celery sticks and your favorite nut butter with whole grain crackers or bread
• Brown rice salad (rice, chick peas, olive oil, sundried tomatoes, brown rice vinegar, sea salt)

These are just some simple suggestions. Please send an email with your favorite lunch recipe and we will post it here for all to see (and let us know if you want your name included or not).

Stay tuned for more lunch ideas in future posts!