In light of the smart and progressively fast generation we are part of, running to office everyday somehow putting on whatever we can find, does not save us enough time to plan thoroughly on what to take to lunch. Whether it is summer or winter, office goers cannot afford to be finicky about food and as a result have to whip up some easy method to prepare and pack whatsoever little sustenance without being too negligent of their health. So here are a few tips on packing some tasty yet healthy lunch for work or office:
Tips and Ideas for Packing a Healthy Office Lunch:
The following mentioned are few healthy lunch ideas for work and ways to prepare easy work lunches.
1. Use leftovers ingeniously:
Remember the time when you were far from finishing your salad and you, in your innocence, could think of no good reason to keep it but to tip it off into the bin. Well, now you can make with that last bit of salad and to your delight turn it into a delectable snack of burrito to take to office for lunch the next day. In the same manner stop throwing your leftovers away and make good lunch of what you have left, so that what you have to take to lunch every other day is one less thing to worry about.
2. Pre planning:
If you are sort of against saving up last night’s dinner because it sounds unhygienic you can always make things easier for yourself by planning up what you will be taking to lunch the following day so as to avoid the last minute hassle before you leave for office. Keep everything ready the previous night so that you find everything close to your hand when you get up early in the morning to prepare easy lunches for work. This saves a lot of time and energy for the employee.
3. Preparing it yourself:
As the day starts early for office goers, it is not at all easy for them to get up in the wee hours, get fresh and also prepare healthy food for lunch. So to keep things flowing in terms of putting very little effort in preparing one’s own food, one can think of keeping things simple by making light food that takes very little time to cook.
4. Eat light:
Avoid lunch food that has too much of oil and butter not only because it takes long to prepare such kind of food but also because this kind of food is not good for your health in the long run. Instead try to live on wholesome food with more fiber content. If taste is a vital issue for you then choose from many flavored bran and oat based food available on the market. Do not go for food that is high on fat as it is only going to make you feel heavy throughout a long day of tedious work at the office.
5. Eat your vegetables:
We all remember how our mother would not let us get up from the table without having finished eating our vegetables, similarly try not neglecting your health by eating all kinds of synthetic food. Remember that food made with vegetables used to be tasty even before the big budget restaurants came in vogue. And if you are food fanatic then there are ways for you to find taste in vegetable if you have the right recipe. And on the bright side there are plenty of age old healthy recipes you can cook from, that barely takes any time to be taken down from the stove or the oven.
6. Making salad:
While concocting food that needs a lot of effort can be demanding, putting some lettuce, Cole slaw, mayonnaise and sauce hardly seems like anything. Do not try to come up with something so early in the morning that is going to tick your nerves right before you go to office, but think of an easy way like salad that can square up the day’s lunch pretty easily.
7. Buy a cookbook:
In case you are a commuter living alone at an apartment, purchasing a cookbook may come to your help in making things manageable for you. Keeping this particular modern plight of office goers in mind, books with easy lunch recipes have been published to make things all the more conquerable for those who do not know how to cook.
8. Do not ignore your health:
As easy it might seem to buy a take out for lunch, too much of eating from outside can have the worst effects on your liver that can sometimes lead to fatal and irreparable consequences. So take a break from buying food from outside and turn to a healthier source of sustenance. And if you invariably have to depend on food from eateries then make sure you are having enough fruits and vegetables afterwards to neutralize the ill effects as much as possible.
9. The question of taste:
Even though it automatically starts to taste better when we are having to cook our own food, making food that actually taste good to take to work is not all that improbable nowadays. The real secret lies in adding the right proportion of spice in whatever you are making which previously had been tasting bland. Moreover adding a little butter to your curry or salad can add a new layer of flavor that is absolutely mouthwatering.
10. Cook over weekend:
People with too much workload find it virtually impossible to prepare food each day and so it seems saner for them to cook their food over the weekend and store it in the freezer. So as to say that, you can take to cooking your everyday lunch intermittently over the week or in a more time specific manner over the weekend to avoid taking up extra pains. All you have to do after you have cooked the food for the respective days of the week is keep them in air tight containers in the freezer so as to keep them from smelling.
11. Do not force yourself:
Never plunge yourself into forcibly liking to eat something every day that you find far from edible. Eating food you do not like regularly can have adverse effects on your health since much of what suits your liking has to do with your psychology and going against it can have serious effects on your health. So if you do not like something but you have still been hard on yourself just because it is easy to make then stop immediately as it will take more from you than it will give.
12. Choosing the right lunchbox:
Deciding what to eat and having the right tools to prepare it is not the end of it all because what you carry your food in is equally important. Choosing the right lunchbox is vital because normally something always comes up at office and you have to procrastinate eating by a few hours or so which spoils the food. But to ease your troubles, lunchboxes that can keep your food fresh for hours have been released in the market. Also just to be on the safe side in case you are carrying something that is most likely to spill, use foil to keep your food warm and still.
13. Stocking up:
Make good of the drawer chests of your office deck by storing up a stash of seasoning items and sauces. It is not always possible to be carrying all that you need to make your food amazingly delicious even if it is lacking in some flavor or the other without having taken prior steps to take care of it. So buy a few sachets of salt, pepper, oregano and all other essential spices needed to help your food turn over a new leaf and store it up in your office drawer for a last minute touch if needed.
14. Keep a microwave:
In case you have your private cabin at office, do arm it with something as essential as a microwave. Not only you can use it to heat the food up when you need to but also as a hot-pot to keep your food warm inside. Moreover it adds a brilliant perk as to building up ties with other people at work as not all them would have a microwave but would still want to have their food hot as if just out of the oven. So you can bend your rules a little to help out your colleagues in distress and also better your relationship with them.
15. Do not carry messy food:
Try avoiding food that will possibly spill out no matter what, for example if you have made gravy and cannot figure out how to take it with you without spilling it, do not put it in your lunch box without having made sure that nothing is going to come out. Aluminum foils come in handy in situations like these as it a foolproof way of keeping any gravy or curry from falling out, not to mention its infallible role in keeping your food warm.
16. Do not share a common refrigerator:
Do not use a common refrigerator to store your food till you get time for lunch as there are high chances that it will be ruined owing to constant usage. Everyone working together at an office do not always get time to eat together because sometimes many fall back on pending work and have to finish whatever work they are left with before they can fill their stomach; and it is no wonder if you are one of them, however opening the fridge too many times may render your food prone to smelling. Hence avoid using a common refrigerator if you can.
Following the aforementioned advice on how to manage hassle free ways to take lunch to office can help you in more ways imaginable. However, the only good thing about office is that even if you forget to bring food to work you can always bank on your friends to share theirs lunch with you. On that note, happy cooking and hope you find pleasure in it..
