Healthy Eating From Your Cubicle Part II: Lunch

Happy Hump Day!

Hopefully you learned a bit from Part I: if you missed it, we covered the joys of my Fridge To Go, and easy healthy breakfast and snack options for the cubicle.

Now onto lunch. Lunch is slightly more tricky, as this meal usually will require more advanced planning. I usually prepare my lunches the night before, and then store them in the fridge in Tupperware so I can just grab ‘em, toss ‘em in Mr. To-Go Fridge, and go in the morning. One of the biggest tips I can give about lunch is: leftovers. Whatever you are making for dinner, make an extra portion for lunch. As my dinners usually include a huge salad with tons of fresh veggies, I just make sure to chop up double the amount of veggies while I’m already chopping anyway, and split them between my dinner salad bowl and a Tupperware for lunch the next day. This makes life SO easy. Just tack on a few extra minutes to dinner and take the time to pack it up, and you have yourself a healthy lunch.

Now I know this is not always possible, such as if you only had enough dinner ingredients for the one meal, or if you ate out, or if you happen to eat something less than healthy that you don’t want to repeat. So of course it is always possible to make a completely separate lunch, and not ALL that much more difficult. Once again, I always make mine the night before, because I’m not much of a morning person. However, if you would prefer to catch some Z’s and put it together in the AM, that also works!

Some lunch ideas:

Salad: More often than not, my lunch is a salad, like my beloved Salada Mexicana Oh La La. When preparing the salad to go, you can either put the dressing on right then (it really doesn’t get ALL that soggy, but I know some people have an issue with this) or you can get some containers to bring your dressing on the side, such as the BB&B ones I mentioned last post. Ta Da! Easy! Another trick is if you have frozen veggies (such as corn, edamame, broccoli), you can just toss them right in your salad at night, and by lunch the next day they will have thawed out. Toss in some toasted seeds also for a tasty crunch. It is important if you are making a salad to make sure it is nutritionally dense enough to hold you over. Gena from Choosing Raw has a great post on dense salads here. My favorite dense salad toppers include: marinated grilled tempeh, shrimp, tuna salad, veggie burgers in crumbles, black beans, chickpeas, avocado slices, toasted seeds, or healthy oils for a dressing (like EVOO). Another wonderful trick for a salad is to TOASTER OVEN some of the components. See below for more details.

Sandwiches/Wraps: This is a super easy and convenient option. Use sprouted grain bread or a sprouted grain wrap (Food for Life has tons of fabulous options) and fill with yumminess. Trader Joe’s has a variety of delicious condiments/spreads that are GREAT in wraps or sandwiches:

(Fat Free Spicy Black Bean Dip, Pineapple Salsa, Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant and Garlic, Chipotle Pepper Hummus)

Make sure to layer in lots of veggies: sprouts, cucumber, tomatoes, and avocado all work great. You can also add in some proteins/beans like the options above. I also LOVE Veganaise (I get the grapeseed variety) on my wraps/sandwiches! This stuff is redonk a donk. Love. If you have a toaster oven at work, you can pop your sandwich in for 5 or so minutes before eating to make it warm and lovely!

Toaster Oven Lunches: These are such a favorite of mine, and always attract a lot of attention in the kitch. Basically, you make a foil packet of deliciousness, then just quickly warm it in your office toaster oven. If you don’t have one… you’re out of luck. I have documented this tactic in steps:

Take a huge piece of aluminum foil and spray it down with some PAM or what have you. Then, toss in frozen veggies and perhaps some tempeh or tofu, or seafood or meat. Then season to your liking. On this occasion I did frozen broccoli, corn, and shrimp, and seasoned with garlic salt, pepper, and about a tablespoon of lemon juice (the trifecta of seasonings).

Then, you fold up your little foil packet and put it into a tupperware to pop in the fridge overnight. A delicious addition to this meal is always half an avocado, which you pack separately. Then, the next day at work, take your foil packet out of the tupperware and bake in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes at 375°. While it’s cooking, cut up your avocado into bite size pieces and toss them into the bottom of the tupperware.

When the heated part of your meal is sufficiently hot, dump it on top of the avocado, and stir everything up. The avocado will get kinda melty and make a yummy dressing over everything else, but there will still be some chunks floating about. It’s so super delish, and so easy! You can also use this tactic to just warm up PARTS of a meal, for example: grape tomatoes and tempeh baked, then tossed over mixed greens, or a veggie burger and some green beans heated, then bring a bun for the burger, ETC ETC. There are endless options here! I won’t drone on and bore you now, but perhaps will pepper in some ideas in future posts. As a special health advisory side note, I strongly suggest using a glass Tupperware when using this method as we all have heard how heat + plastic = chemicals, even if you are just ADDING the heat back INTO the plastic, and not even directly heating the plastic. On this particular occasion I clearly was not following my own rule, but you should try to whenever possible!

(Quinoa topped with marinated tempeh, spinach, zucchini and sesame seeds)

Whole Grains & Vegs: A scoop o’ brown rice or quinoa, topped with veggies! Then perhaps marinara or salsa to top off. Quinoa, broccoli, and marinara is one of my fave combos, but there are so many easy ones! Fresh herbs go great with grains also. This can be enjoyed cold, or warmed in microwave/toaster oven.

PHEW! That’s a lot of ideas! That’s not even everything, but should be a good start.

As far as office parties and such go, I always just use the moderation approach. You seem like a bum if you never eat the cake at someone’s birthday party, but truthfully, if they are judging you, that’s their own problem. It’s your life and you don’t have to eat anything you don’t want to! However, if you do want some cake, which I usually do, just have a small slice, and don’t go back for seconds. Eat it slowly and savor the down time to get to know your fellow office buddies. If there’s a pizza party, just have one slice, and if salad is offered on the side, load up on it. As long as you are smiling and laughing along with everyone else, there should be no reason for anyone to judge you!

So that’s it! A super long two-part post on how to be the healthiest little eater you can possibly be while at work. Not only is this approach better for your waistline, we also all know it saves bucks to pack your own lunch, especially hear in NYC. As much as I love Chopt, their salads usually come out at about $10 for me! It makes sense as all their ingredients are fresh and mostly organic, and obviously they need to make a buck, but I would rather just buy my organic produce at Trader Joe’s and put together my own salad for more like a cumulative $3-$5. And any of the snacks from Part I are probably cheaper than the junk from the vending machine! Easy peezy!

One last important note, for mental health: whenever possible, enjoy your lunch OUTSIDE the office, at a park or something. Greenery and fresh air can do wonders to recharge you! My office is conveniently located near Bryant Park, so I try to bring my little meals there whenever I can, and I get to enjoy views like this with lunch:

If you can’t make it outside for the whole meal, at least try to use part of your lunch break to take a lap around the block or something. Any little bit of fresh air is so helpful! I know in this day and age we are all always GO GO GO and there never seems to be time to relax, but honestly, you NEED these small moments to stay sane. Don’t deprive yourself!

Happy office eating!

xoxo

Hilary

FYI - Elina over at Healthy and Sane is giving away 5 coupons for free Siggi’s yogurt to 5 winners HERE! It looks like Siggi’s would make a perfect healthy breakfast or snack for the cubicle!

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