As the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Well, I’ve been failing lately. Failing in the food category. I’m a big believer in brown bag lunches and snacks and cooking at home whenever possible. However, I’ve found myself handing over my debit card to more food venders in the past month than the whole last year combined. And this needs to change.
For one thing, eating out is expensive. Five bucks for a chicken sandwich may not seem like much, but if you add in the $4 smoothie for breakfast, $2.50 bagel for a snack and multiply that by 5 days a week, you’re looking at roughly $50 a week on food. And that’s just food eaten during business hours! Never mind the dinners out. Or the weekends. Even if you ate every dinner at home and cooked each weekend meal, you’re still looking at $200 per month on work/daytime food.
But the other, bigger problem is that most of the food you purchase on the go is crap. Pure and simple crap. Some of it may be nutritious, but overall, it will never be as healthy as what you could whip together at home. I do my best to choose “healthy” options – almost always opting for the grilled chicken sandwich in lieu of the fried or 86-ing the sour cream from my burrito and foregoing the chips. But you still don’t know where this “food” comes from or where the fat is hiding. And probably the worst nutrition aspect is the sodium – its always incredibly high.
So I fully realize that I need to be bringing my food to work, but I’m having issues following through. For one thing (due to this whole knocked up thing), I can’t eat lunch meat unless it’s heated up, which is just icky, so sandwiches are out. PB&Js get old, very quickly, especially considering I eat an English muffin with peanut butter as part of my breakfast most mornings. Salads are good in theory, but they require a lot of planning and ingredients. And I’m trying to reduce the amount of processed foods I eat (yes, I realize this is ironic considering all the eating out…).
When I do get my sh*t together, I’ve been brining Kashi frozen meals for lunch and Greek yogurt with honey for a snack. I’m also big on bananas. But I’m curious what other people do for healthy brown bag lunches? Any tips would be much appreciated!
I LOVE food. So I do not waste a meal on something that is not totally delicious! And I am very healthy. What I've been bringing lately is a thai vegetable wrap. (it's supposed to be thai chicken wrap but I don't eat much meat. I have put tofu in it before and its great too) Use whatever whole wheat tortilla you want. Make the thai peanut sauce ahead of time and you can make probably 5-6 wraps w/ it. Spread the sauce on the wrap. Top w/ shredded carrots (I shred my own) and sliced red peppers and you can add field greens and wrap it up. It's wonderful! I take everything separately to work and make it in the breakroom so its fresh, though I think it would be fine wrapped up in the morning in some tin foil. I'll send you the thai peanut spread recipe via email. (it has pb in it but even w/ your peanut butter for breakfast it's not too much).
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday, take the time to roast loads of vegetables in the oven. I don't know what you like, but I do at least 3-4 full cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, full of eggplant, zucchini,tomatoes, onions, peppers, asparagus, garlic, etc. etc. Drizzle all of the veggies with olive oil and put in oven on high heat. Let everything cool completely, and store in fridge for up to a week in a thin layer of olive oil to keep everything fresh. You can buy those microwave brown rice packets really cheap and portable, and add to your vegetables each day. Cheap, healthy, very filling. Of course this is coming from the guy who just ate greasy thai food at work for two consecutive days.
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