Using Bento Boxes for lunches.
Please be easy on me, it's my first post in the forums here! 
I'm so surprised that there aren't any posts on Bento-ing here; or at least not where I could find them. And before I get a member of the grammar patrol on me, it does seem that the word has evolved to the point that it can be used as a verb!
Are there people here on MFP that make Bento lunches to help control their calories/portion sizes? If so, what kind of things do you add to your Bento box? Do you have favourite recipes that you regularly use to help with your dietary goals?
As an office worker who has a long public transport commute, after much trial and error (and a few leaked lunches on the train
), I discovered Bento lunches through the JustBento website when looking for healthy lunch ideas. The idea of using the concepts of a traditional homemade Bento lunch to control the size of your lunch portions as well as their transportability appealed to me, and after giving them a go, I was hooked.
Just to clarify, I'm not talking Charaben/Kyaraben here (those cute yet unhealthy artistic lunches that look like cartoon characters and take hours to make). I hate to think what gets put into some of those lunches for the sake of them looking like a piece of artwork.
I find that now for me, the almost ritualistic habit of making my Bento each night for my lunch the next day to be essential to controlling what I eat whilst I'm at work (I can be a bit of a mindless eater and don't always realise that I'm actually putting food in my mouth), as well as being very aware of portion control and serving sizes. I have to think about what I'm going to eat for the week in advance, I can pre-cook meat and freeze it in portions required, same with my carbs, it never takes me more than 15 minutes during the week to do (about an hour of pre-cooking and freezing on the weekends) and I feel good knowing that I've formed a healthy eating habit that I enjoy greatly.
I also love the fact that my Bento's look good as well since neat and tidy packing is the key to a good Bento lunch - because food that looks pretty is generally more fun to eat, and if it's fun to eat, then you're more likely to enjoy the food itself. I mean, people buy those fancy birthday cakes, and fondant icing tastes horrible (sweet plasticine anyone?)
I rarely ever comment on MFP, generally staying to the lurking shadows of the forums (seeing some of those threads evolve from a simple question into macro/lowcal/sugar/fasting/give-me-a-scientific-reference-or-be-damned arguments scares me to posting silence!), but when making tomorrows bento before dinner (I made it extra neat and used some fun cutters to liven up my vegetables since we having a New Years picnic lunch), I thought I'd make the dive into the forums and reach out to see if there were Bento-ers around, see how they made their Bento, and to maybe get some great new ideas for foods/recipes to add to my repertoire. I really want this post to be about ideas and recipes for foods that are:
- Easily transportable (please don't suggest sandwiches, as that's pretty much a given!)
- Can be eaten at room temperature, or only need to be stored in a basic insulated bag
- Can be packed tightly without smooshing (is that the technical term?)
To start with, this is an example of my Bento for my breakfast, lunch (in this case a more Japanese traditional style) and snacks that I have at work, just made prettier than normal for our work picnic tomorrow (hey, it's lovely and warm in Australia right now - come and visit!):
The foods you can see here are:
blue containers
- white Japanese rice (140g), with 1/4tsp rice seasoning and pickled plums
- 5 lean beef mince meatballs, cooked and glazed with a small amount of soy sauce, with lettuce and tomatoes with filling
- 1 cup of lightly blanched vegetables (carrot, capsicum(peppers), broccoli, snow peas, brussel sprouts)
pink container
- 80 grams strawberries, quartered
- 20 grams blackberries
green container
- 15g each of blueberries and raspberries
- 100g natural yoghurt (unflavoured) with cinnamon.
For reference, the three Blue containers stack together, and have a total capacity of 490mL; the two square containers are 120mL and 70mL (normally I'd just use one container that has dividers). Throw in a babybel light mini-cheese and you have there a total of 545 calories that took me 15 minutes to make (maybe add 30 mins if you include me cooking a batch of mini-meatballs on the weekend that gave me 10 lunch servings) and leaves room to have a couple of coffees and maybe a cookie during the day without wanting to fret about my calories.. Except for the cheese and the seasoning on the rice, the food is cooked from scratch with in-season vegetables and fruits (so much cheaper!), and there are no preservatives in sight. They fit in a small carriable insulated bag, which I find is essential when taking peak-hour public transport.
I'm so surprised that there aren't any posts on Bento-ing here; or at least not where I could find them. And before I get a member of the grammar patrol on me, it does seem that the word has evolved to the point that it can be used as a verb!
Are there people here on MFP that make Bento lunches to help control their calories/portion sizes? If so, what kind of things do you add to your Bento box? Do you have favourite recipes that you regularly use to help with your dietary goals?
As an office worker who has a long public transport commute, after much trial and error (and a few leaked lunches on the train
), I discovered Bento lunches through the JustBento website when looking for healthy lunch ideas. The idea of using the concepts of a traditional homemade Bento lunch to control the size of your lunch portions as well as their transportability appealed to me, and after giving them a go, I was hooked.Just to clarify, I'm not talking Charaben/Kyaraben here (those cute yet unhealthy artistic lunches that look like cartoon characters and take hours to make). I hate to think what gets put into some of those lunches for the sake of them looking like a piece of artwork.
I find that now for me, the almost ritualistic habit of making my Bento each night for my lunch the next day to be essential to controlling what I eat whilst I'm at work (I can be a bit of a mindless eater and don't always realise that I'm actually putting food in my mouth), as well as being very aware of portion control and serving sizes. I have to think about what I'm going to eat for the week in advance, I can pre-cook meat and freeze it in portions required, same with my carbs, it never takes me more than 15 minutes during the week to do (about an hour of pre-cooking and freezing on the weekends) and I feel good knowing that I've formed a healthy eating habit that I enjoy greatly.
I also love the fact that my Bento's look good as well since neat and tidy packing is the key to a good Bento lunch - because food that looks pretty is generally more fun to eat, and if it's fun to eat, then you're more likely to enjoy the food itself. I mean, people buy those fancy birthday cakes, and fondant icing tastes horrible (sweet plasticine anyone?)
I rarely ever comment on MFP, generally staying to the lurking shadows of the forums (seeing some of those threads evolve from a simple question into macro/lowcal/sugar/fasting/give-me-a-scientific-reference-or-be-damned arguments scares me to posting silence!), but when making tomorrows bento before dinner (I made it extra neat and used some fun cutters to liven up my vegetables since we having a New Years picnic lunch), I thought I'd make the dive into the forums and reach out to see if there were Bento-ers around, see how they made their Bento, and to maybe get some great new ideas for foods/recipes to add to my repertoire. I really want this post to be about ideas and recipes for foods that are:
- Easily transportable (please don't suggest sandwiches, as that's pretty much a given!)
- Can be eaten at room temperature, or only need to be stored in a basic insulated bag
- Can be packed tightly without smooshing (is that the technical term?)
To start with, this is an example of my Bento for my breakfast, lunch (in this case a more Japanese traditional style) and snacks that I have at work, just made prettier than normal for our work picnic tomorrow (hey, it's lovely and warm in Australia right now - come and visit!):
The foods you can see here are:
blue containers
- white Japanese rice (140g), with 1/4tsp rice seasoning and pickled plums
- 5 lean beef mince meatballs, cooked and glazed with a small amount of soy sauce, with lettuce and tomatoes with filling
- 1 cup of lightly blanched vegetables (carrot, capsicum(peppers), broccoli, snow peas, brussel sprouts)
pink container
- 80 grams strawberries, quartered
- 20 grams blackberries
green container
- 15g each of blueberries and raspberries
- 100g natural yoghurt (unflavoured) with cinnamon.
For reference, the three Blue containers stack together, and have a total capacity of 490mL; the two square containers are 120mL and 70mL (normally I'd just use one container that has dividers). Throw in a babybel light mini-cheese and you have there a total of 545 calories that took me 15 minutes to make (maybe add 30 mins if you include me cooking a batch of mini-meatballs on the weekend that gave me 10 lunch servings) and leaves room to have a couple of coffees and maybe a cookie during the day without wanting to fret about my calories.. Except for the cheese and the seasoning on the rice, the food is cooked from scratch with in-season vegetables and fruits (so much cheaper!), and there are no preservatives in sight. They fit in a small carriable insulated bag, which I find is essential when taking peak-hour public transport.
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Replies
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It took a really long time, but I packed my boyfriend a smurf themed bento when they finally launched a game he'd been working on (ios programmer). Can't find a picture, but I'll keep looking and post it if I do. The smurf wasn't blue, he was brown because he was made of chicken flavoured quinoa. I cut a provolone slice to be his clothing. Cut up a chicken breast to look like a house shape. Background of Kale.
The colours were wrong, but the loves was there and he had a nice healthy salad. All he had to do was cut up the chicken breast and mix it all up.
I fell in love with bento a few years back. Started with a hot dog octopus (easy and awesome. Cephalopods are my favourite) and never made lunch the same again.0 -
Okay, today's lunch and snack bento: Snacks are a somewhat smooshed bunny egg, roasted almonds and strawberries. Lunch is broccoli, jasmine rice, pork dumplings & two green tea milk caramels (the things that look like green Starburst) . Both are kind of on lighter side today as I am expecting a big dinner tonight.
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wow I need to do this or portion control!!! It is also so visually pleasing to the eye.0
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wow I need to do this or portion control!!! It is also so visually pleasing to the eye.
It's quite fun actually. Since we're limited to how much we can fit in our box, it limits the calories (somewhat automatically) and by making it pretty and with variety it helps keep you sated.
Grab a tupperware/gladware and give it a go? It doesn't hurt to try
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wow I need to do this or portion control!!! It is also so visually pleasing to the eye.
This is why I started doing bentos about four years ago - it was my solution to portion control while losing weight. And you don't need to buy fancy boxes or anything to try it out. Just pull out last night's leftovers, some fruits and veggies, and some Tupperware and have fun!
This is a breakfast, lunch, and snack bento I made before I started posting here. It is all in Tupperware and uses leftovers and whatever else I could find in the fridge.
The small container at the bottom was breakfast: pineapple, vanilla Greek yogurt, raspberries, and cinnamon.
The big container was lunch: leftover brown rice, leftover mushu pork stir fry, blanched broccoli and green beans, and mini red bell pepper rings.
The other small container was a snack box: heirloom tomatoes and mini dill pickles.0 -
I saw them at the health food store and WHY did I put them back?? I should have tried them! I like sour! Next time I go, I will get them! I eat raw lemons and canberries!mangrothian wrote: »Narcissora wrote: »mangrothian wrote: »So you made cannelloni then (the rolled up version of lasagne)?
I think its great idea; were the pieces firm enough to just pick up with a fork by the time you ate it (ie, no knife/spoon required)?
I thought cannelloni used a specific type of pasta? Maybe not. I don't do Italian often, so if it isn't spaghetti, chances are I might not know what it is. But yes, I ate my pasta creation with a fork only
Also, I looked for umeboshi at Wegmans (they have a pretty good Asian food section, considering it is just a regular grocery store), but I couldn't find it. I'm really curious because you use them a lot, and I want to try them out.
Also also, can you please pass an orange starburst over to me?
You can either make cannelloni by rolling up lasagne sheets, or by buying the pre-made tubes. As to the umeboshi, they're something that I only ever seem to find at specialty asian grocers (the English term is pickled plum fyi). I do use them a lot, but I do warn you that they are a very sour, acquired taste. I love them, but they're not for everybody.
My daddy always said I was too sweet, so I guess I need sour stuff to balance me out My husband on the other hand, tells me sour is as sour does 
And I'll only give you the orange starburst if you exchange it for a yellow one...
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I use a bento box for my 7 year old's lunch at school, but typically just bring leftovers from our previous night's dinner for myself, in whatever container I happened to put it in.0
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I was super excited to have a BRUNCH BENTO today!! I ran a 5k yesterday with some friends, and had leftover ham and hasbrowns from our post-run brunch. (Probably b/c we had granola bars, bananas, hot dogs, and beer at the event.) Hashbrowns, ham, and an egg-shaped boiled egg with grapes, banana slices, and kiwi slices. The hashbrowns and ham were a little tossed, but I loved it! I have another prepped in the fridge for later this week!
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Tomorrow's bento made with planned overs: cheese, black beans, lean ground beef w/ taco sauce, yellow bell peppers, carrots, avocado and Italian dressing in the pot. Total = 454 cals.
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I'm super excited for tomorrow's lunch! A while back you guys were talking about gemwraps, and I got really curious and had to try them out. I will let you know how it is tomorrow
Mango chipotle gemwrap filled with spicy chicken salad, lettuce, and tomato; strawberries with goat cheese; gyoza; rice with nori komi furikake; and a little fishy of soy sauce.0 -
Work food for tomorrow. Salad (butter lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, and carrots. Sprinkled with parmesan. Also, grape tomatoes and a few bits of cheddar. The other container is snackie foods. Heart shaped hardboiled eggs, smoked almonds, apple, and cheese.
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I've stopped making a bento box for lunch since doing low carb, does anyone here make low carb bento boxes? I suppose i just need to be a little more creative!0
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Today my bento was green salad with a can of tuna, cottage cheese and Greek yogurt. No pics, but it was pretty low carb and sort of filling (I'm afraid I'll always be hungry unless I eat a whole pizza lol)0
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I just made my first bento box today, after getting the idea from mfp a few months ago and hunting around for some accessories and things. Veggie Cutters are from Daiso, and Rice moulds and Fuel bento box from ebay. Cheers for the awesome idea.
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chloeelizabethm wrote: »I've stopped making a bento box for lunch since doing low carb, does anyone here make low carb bento boxes? I suppose i just need to be a little more creative!
Have a look back over the last few pages. There's quite a few low carb boxes there, especially the ones using those vegetable gem wraps.0 -
Here is my box today:
Layer one: Mango, broccoli, goat cheese, almonds, and some happy or defiant strawberries (first time using my picks!)
Layer two: shrimp, corn, half a string cheese and cabbage/kale salad. Served with honey red wine vinaigrette.
Today feels like a defiant, tongue-sticking-out strawberry kind of day!0 -
mangrothian wrote: »chloeelizabethm wrote: »I've stopped making a bento box for lunch since doing low carb, does anyone here make low carb bento boxes? I suppose i just need to be a little more creative!
Have a look back over the last few pages. There's quite a few low carb boxes there, especially the ones using those vegetable gem wraps.
I agree although I suppose it depends on how you define "low carb". My boxes don't tend to have grain in them so most of my carbohydrate is coming from my fruits and veggies. That doesn't necessarily mean they are "low carb" but I'm going for nutrient dense, to tell the truth. Also, fruits and veggies are nom nom nom 0
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