Green and Frugal Lunch

Part of the Green and Frugal Series

I remember when I lived in New York City, back in the days before people spoke about environmental sustainability or green practices, I would go to a deli about a block from the office and pick up a hot tea with milk, (and sometimes bagel with a large schmear of cream cheese).  The tea was packed in a disposable cup, with a plastic lid, and placed in a paper bag with 3 napkins, 4 sugars, plus a wooden stirrer.  I recall going back to the office and a colleague lamenting at how much trash we generated just to have a cup of coffee or tea.

Today, there are a lot of alternatives to this wasteful and waste-creating behavior, and a lot of fun creative ways to have frugal, healthy, and green lunches.  With school starting shortly and people interested in how to pack an ecologically sustainable lunch, I offer some hints, based on my own experience.

–Plan to bring your own lunch — this might be obvious, but one of the best ways to control the cost and waste  from lunch is to pack your own.  For me, this means making larger portions at dinner to pack for lunch the next day as well as purchasing items that work well in a packed lunch, like apples and pears. I also work these lunches into menu plans with different ideas and recipes that are suitable for lunchtime.

–Look for a high quality reusable lunch box–  My two favorites are the laptop lunch which works well for lunches that are served at room temperature, with separate compartments for lots of fruits, veggies, and other tasty things; and Mr. Bento which is especially good for bringing leftovers and an Asian-style meal complete with soup and rice. There are also really great unbreakable thermoses now that keep food quite hot for some time, so that you can bring leftovers or soup for lunch.

–Reduce reliance on pre-packaged snack items — first off, many of these, like some of the dessert snacks, chips, and cookies are full of trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and things you can’t pronounce, and the individual packaging results in unneeded trash.  Instead buy items in the lower cost-per-serving large size and pack individual amounts into the lunchbox containers above. Or create your own healthy snacks with ingredients you can pronounce such as trail mix (dried fruit and nuts), homemade muffins, and fresh fruit.

–Reduce food waste — one great way to reduce food waste is to involve family members in the planning of lunches. We have a system of thumbs up and thumbs down, so I know what dishes to repeat. Allow them to have input into what they want to see in the lunch, and if practical, have kids involved in the preparation. Make fruits and vegetables more accessible by cutting into pieces suitable for finger foods and provide dips, such as hummus, yogurt dip, or applesauce for fruit, to make it more fun.  Finally, monitor the amount of food that is consumed the first few times you try a new item.  In my childhood, my mom would pack about 2-3 times as much food as I could consume (including chips), which ended up being thrown out each day.

–Serve vegetarian lunches more often– I’m an omnivore, but tend to have vegetarian dinners once once or twice a week and vegetarian lunches most of the time.  I started exploring vegetarian food for health reasons, and happily, eating vegetarian lowers your carbon imprint. In fact, more so than eating local.  If you’re looking for inspiration, a good site with beautiful pictures is Vegan Lunch Box.

As always, I’m interested in how you make your lunches more green (and frugal).

posted at Works for Me Wednesday