How I Learned to Love a Lunch Bucket
Local blogger Metroknow has taken the big jump. He decided to become a professional blogger, and started a website called AlmostFit.com to record his efforts to “lose weight and improve his health using a slow, holistic approach.” The advice he gives is good, and the goals reasonable, I urge you to check it out. He’s already helped me to start changing the way I eat. In particular, the way I eat lunch.
Most weekdays I get lunch out. I’m downtown, there’s a banquet of tasty deliciousness all around me, and I hate to pack my lunch. Furthermore, making healthy choices is hard, when deep-fried whatever is so much more tasty. I fight this fight nearly every day. Needless to say I pay a heavy price for this habit, both monetarily and health-wise. So when Metroknow published a three-part series “How I quit eating fast food,” you will realize that this is a topic near and dear to my plaque-encrusted heart.
Although the series is a good one, there was one tip in particular that jumped off the screen and hit me smack between the eyes: Buy the coolest, most useful thermos and lunch box you can find. The theory is, if you have a lunchbox that you LOVE, you will be more inclined to actually use it.
Then he mentions in particular the Zojirushi Classic Stainless Lunch Jar.
Oh my God, this is the best thing ever. It’s an insulated container with four separate bowls that stack inside. The two larger bowls sit at the bottom of the jar under an insulated lid, so they stay hot (or cold) all day. The other two stack on top. This is made for bento, except you don’t have to put it together in a single tray and cut out seaweed anime characters to put on top of the rice.
I went to Uwajimaya and bought one that night.
Metroknow is right. If you have a cool lunchbox, you will want to use it. But it goes deeper than that. The containers are sized and stacked for particular contents. The meat/soup goes in the small bowl on the bottom. The rice or other starch goes in the larger bowl on top of that. Above the insulated lid the medium-sized bowl is for veggies. And the tiny bowl on top is for pickles, or dessert. Now, when I think about fixing a lunch, I’m not facing a blank page. Now I have particular niches to fill, which (surprisingly) makes the process infinitely easier.
So, the Zojirushi makes it easier to take a lunch, and makes it easier to decide what to take. Already I love it, but there’s another advantage: It also reinforces portion control. The Mr. Bento jar (above) is the largest one they make, and the bowls are still much smaller than the plastic containers I would usually pack leftovers in. If you can only put so much into the bowl, you can only have so much for lunch. Again, it’s about compartmentalizing. Compartmentalizing the food, compartmentalizing the way you think about the food.
I brought my lunch in my Mr. Bento lunch jar today. It will be far healthier (and far cheaper) than what I usually eat, and I’m actually excited about it. That’s impressive.
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Great find! I wonder if the Dabbawalas of Southern India know about those?
I once saw an item on CoolHunting that was similar to this, but 2 bowls put together to form a carrying case. Yet it was a concept, not actual production.
I’m gonna look into this. I’m getting quite tired of the offerings downtown these days. One can have only so many burritos and bento bowls.
Thanks for the recommendation.
True about the burritos and bento bowls (and brats!) but at least you have the Schnitzelwich! We’re sorely lacking a lunch cart corner on lower E. Burnside. Hmph
But you are so close to the lunch carts on 12th/Hawthorne right? Isn’t there a Fry shack there?
Good luck on the healthy eating. My work lunch consists of an apple, a banana, two tangelos and a golf ball-sized serving of smoked almonds. I get teased by my pizza and Subway eating co-workers, but *my* muffin top is receding. Theirs? Not so much. They kid, but they do root for me. Keep up the good work; you’ll be having Jenny Craig moments in no time!
Yes yes the fry shack featuring signage/graphics by Grass Hut co-proprietor Justin “Scrappers” Morrison. Dieselboi I see a folding bike in your future. Ride it to work, throw it under your desk. If the weather get’s nasty, hop on MAX. If you’re out gettin’ your beer on and, ahem, “unable” to ride home, throw it in a friends trunk and hitch a ride. Your mobile lifestyle is begging for a Brompton!
I had the same experience! A few months ago, I was in a lunch funk. My motivation to bring my lunch was going down. One reason was that I had an insulated lunch box that was just too big, I hated carrying it on the bus. I thought that buying a cute lunch set would help. I went to Uwajimaya and found a set that included a little bag with 3 good-quality, no-spill containers that fit perfectly inside. It was cute and functional. And it really did work. Having the 3 containers made it easy to pack the lunch, and I felt good about having such a cute lunch bag (I have received many compliments). Mine is similar to this, but with 3 big containers (rather than a drink container):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunchinabox/166717196/in/set-72157594150632817/
Tinymeat, why use a bike when I can walk?
I think I’ve stumbled into some kind of cult.
There’s a Mr. Bento flickr pool. Wow.
Hey there PAgent - Thank you so much for the link, and I’m glad you are enjoying the lunchbox. I really do think it is one of those little things that can have a bigger impact over time.
Best to you, and see ya around Twitter -
@PAgent -
We’re not a cult