How to improve your packed lunch

There's plenty of guidance for what to put in schoolchildren's lunch boxes, whether it be from the School Food Trust, NHS website, or even individual schools' `packed lunch policies'. But what about the adults, and their nutritional welfare?

While parents are encouraged to pack more fruit and vegetables into their kids’ lunchboxes, what guidance is out there for adult lunchtime options? The British Dietetic Association does give some advice, but we sought suggestions from other sources.

Why pack a lunchbox?

It can seem too much like hard work in the morning, and packed lunches prepared the night before are always a little ‘tired’ come lunchtime. But as a money-saving exercise, packed lunches make a lot of sense. Let’s consult popular food blogger and expert on eating well on a tight budget, The Skint Foodie…

Nutritious not niggardly

A packed lunch obviously makes sense if you’re trying to save money. But The Skint Foodie goes further and suggests that better quality food should be the primary motivation for bringing your own. Here are his top tips:

• It's worth investing in one of those wide-mouthed thermos flasks – ideal for stews and rustic soups.
• Salads are great to take in, but if they include salad leaves you shouldn't mix in the dressing at home – the leaves will wilt. Instead, keep a squeezie bottle of dressing at work and spritz the salad there, just before eating.
• Another good investment is a mini French Press – take in freshly ground coffee and you'll save a fortune if you've been relying on coffee bars. Use this procedure to try out lots of different coffees. If you can get others at work interested, you could club together to buy beans online and split the cost of delivery.
• Take in your own bottle of purified tap water, enlivened with your favourite cordial (mine's elderflower). Again, this will save you money if you've got into the habit of buying mineral water.

Fine advice for the fiscally aware; but what of nutrition? We spoke with professor of packed lunches, Dr Charlotte Evans. Dr Evans is a lecturer in nutritional epidemiology at the University of Leeds and has a key interest in packed lunches and public health, having led a national research project into the subject.

Pack a rainbow

A key player in setting-up the ‘SMART lunch box’ intervention to improve the nutritional content of children's packed lunches in schools, Dr Evans has some sage advice for packing a punch in your lunch. Quite simply, she offers the same fundamental principle for adults as she does for schoolchildren: fresh fruit and vegetables will give you the boost you need to get you through the day.

Borrowing an adage from Japanese food culture, she suggests that you try to include five colours on your plate if you want to eat well at lunchtime. Or, to put it another way, we should pack a rainbow in our lunchboxes.

What do you put in your packed lunch? Let us know in the Comments section below.

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