In the middle of October I finally decided to do something I had been talking about doing for years, I started taking lunch to work. In this post I will explain how I got started, what challenges and benefits I have experienced so far and some tips that may help anyone who wants to do something similar.

While I have always thought that bringing lunch to work would be a great idea, the biggest stumbling block to actually doing it was I felt I had no time to fit it into my schedule. It is hard enough having a full-time job, but combining it with side gigs and a few passion projects leaves one feeling overwhelmed most of the time. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck and I had to work from home for 3 weeks, I started thinking about how I was going to adjust if my favourite eateries were closed and I had to make most of the food I ate right at home.

When work at the office resumed I decided to start researching into ways people have made packing lunch for work simple. I watched several Youtube videos for inspiration and in September I decided to buy 2 sets of plastic food containers (5 containers per set) and get started in the first week of October.

There are a few things that I must say here about how I made it work which some people would find difficult to do. But it is the sacrifice I had to make to make this happen and hopefully you would not need to do the same to start taking lunch to work.

Firstly, I had to take the same meal everyday. Yes, everyday. There was simply no way I could make a variety of meals on Saturday or Sunday for the entire week. I lack the skill and (especially) the motivation for that. Also, I take Fridays off. This is a way to ensure that what I am doing is sustainable. Having a day off has helped psychologically with getting through the repetitiveness of the other days. Finally, I did not plan for snacks. I know there are really disciplined people who can meal prep breakfast, lunch and snacks for work. I think doing lunch is about as much as I can stomach (literally lol).

One of the challenges I discovered right away was that I had significantly underestimated how much time it would take me to prepare the meals. That was because I had not included the time required for grocery shopping. Another challenge was that when you’re cooking in large quantities (as a mediocre cook) you need to take time because if the meal turns out bad you’re headed for miserable lunches for an entire week. Finally, preparing for work each morning required an extra 5-10 minutes to dish out food and package it. But I resolved this challenge through a change in strategy I will explain in the tips.

Before we get into the tips I will want to explain some of the benefits I have experienced from taking lunch to work. The first benefit is that I have been eating more healthy foods than I used to. I eat way more vegetables and protein, less salt, less oil and less fats. I have also cut my expenditure on food at work by over 50%. Having more control over when I eat is also another benefit. On days when I am hungry early, I have my food as brunch. When I am too busy I can have a late lunch.

I’m not going to pretend that it has been easy. I do not look forward to spending 2-3 hours of my weekend cooking. Neither do I look forward to eating the same thing everyday for lunch. Nevertheless I believe that as I continue to do it I will get more creative with the recipes and also that the whole process will eventually become second nature to me.

If you want to get started taking lunch to work I have a few tips below for you.

1. Have a trial run. If I had to start over again I will have tried for a week to test everything from how appropriate the bowls are, how different foods taste after having been frozen and then microwaved, where to find the best groceries at the best prices and so on.
2. The fewer bowls each day, the better. Trust me, you do not want to wash any extra dishes at night because you need to have a separate bowl for each food item in your lunch. Spend some time looking for bowls with separate compartments.
3. Better too little than too much. The last thing you want to do is to not be able to finish your lunch and have to discard the rest at work, or worse to carry the stinking remnants back home.
4. Have meals be packed as ready-to-go as possible. When I started, I used to have to dish out each food item from their storage into my lunch bowl. This took too much time in the morning. Now I have the full meal packaged in a bowl ready to just pick from the fridge and head out.
5. Be disciplined but flexible. Here’s the thing, if you’re going to be skipping days because you do not feel like it, it won’t work. It’s better to plan a day off each week (like I do) to have some level of flexibility and to make it easier for you to stick to it.

There are several reasons why people would not be able to take lunch to work. Or maybe they just do not need to. But if you feel this is something you want to do I hope this post has helped you to get started. If you have already been sending food to work, consider dropping some tips in the comments to help me and others. And if you’ve found this post useful, please share it. Catch you next time.