Whether you live in the Mods, Grad, Ridgewood, or off-campus, you probably don’t have a meal plan. Good job! You have successfully escaped the terrible, not healthy, and more importantly, not tasty campus food. However, this means a new issue has arisen that you haven’t had to deal with since… uh, well high school. Yes ladies, you now have to pack your own lunches. If you have managed to manipulate your schedule to allow for a two-hour lunch break, congrats! You can head back to your nice kitchen and eat there. On the other hand, if you seem to always sign up for those 12:30-1:50 classes, then listen up. By choosing to pack lunch you have ultimate control over what you eat, and it will be less costly. But here is the real question. Now that I have chosen to pack lunch, what do I bring? Here is what you will find in my lunch pail:
Protein
Make sure you pack something high in protein so you are not tempted to buy something on campus. I always pack a Fage Greek Yogurt because it fills me up!
Fruit
Pack at least one fruit. It is healthy, and satisfies your sweet tooth. This way you don’t make a pit stop at the C-store candy isle.
Vegetable
Remember when your mom or dad always packed carrot sticks in your lunch? Remember how you threw them out every day? I know I do. Nowadays I pack myself a handful of carrots and actually eat them. They are healthy, filling, and satisfy the need for crunchy.
Carbohydrate
I make sure to pack some sort of carb because 1. I like sugar and 2. It fills me up. Recently I’ve been packing myself pretzels. Last week it was pretzel rods, this week it is honey-twists. No matter what it is, make sure to pack something that will fill this need.
Nuts
I always pack a handful of almonds. Almonds do not need to be kept cold, so they last all day. That way if the rest of your lunch fills you up, you can save them for later.
Something you are looking forward to
This item can be one of the above-mentioned foods, or something else, but make sure you are actually looking forward to something you are eating. A good example of this is a 100-calorie pack of fudge stripes. Just enough to satisfy my sweet tooth and get me excited about my lunch, but not enough to make me feel guilty about indulging.
An issue you might have is keeping your food cold. Let me tell you, warm Greek yogurt is gross. You can either buy a cold pack, which they sell at the grocery store, or put a zip-lock baggy full of ice in your lunch box and it will keep your food cold all day for you.
Instead of the six things I just mentioned, you can always make a little bit extra of what you are making for dinner and save it for the next day. If you make a great pasta dish, put a portion into a Tupperware container and save it for tomorrow! There are microwaves located in Einstein’s and Usdan, so heating it up is not an issue.
For fun you can always spice up your lunch life by buying a cute lunch box. My best friend from high school collects tin lunch boxes. She has everything from Hello-Kitty to Barbie to Marilyn Monroe. And if you aren’t into that kind of thing, reuse your grocery bags or the cloth bags from Urban!
There you go—you now can pack a lunch for yourself! Do it the night before, or in the morning, but either way, pack smart!