Make Your Own Lunch: Financial and Health Benefits

I find that lunch can be a right old pain in the backside when you’re working full-time. I work in central London, which like any city may have lots of variety, but if you want quality and healthy food you often need a small mortgage to fund it. The cheapest ‘buy out’ option is the sandwich from chains that won’t be named, chock-full of mayonnaise, salt and often questionable ingredients, not matter how ‘freshly prepared’ they claim to be. Or from the canteen, if you are lucky enough to have one and it be subsidised but then knowing what I know about large-scale catering, the quality of the ingredients is not going to be as high up the priority list as profits.

This brings me to the make-your-own point. I’m a huge fan of packed lunches. Once I got over the stigma of it, that is. It was only when I was working full-time in the music industry for minus £3 per hour that I realised that the only way to remove myself from sliding deeper into the red and drowning in my overdraft was to think about ways to keep my money in my pocket for longer than five seconds. The result was the packed lunch.

Your Challenge:

• Take a note of everything you buy in a working day from the minute you step out of the door until you walk back in.
• How could you make alterations to your current habits that could curtail some of that spending?

If you think more smartly about your eating habits and options then you can save loads and for some it can be a lifeline, where you were in the red two weeks into the month, you may be able to keep yourself happily in the black until pay-day and sshhh, don’t say it too loudly, but you might even be able to save a little.

some ideas to get you going:

• Bagged salad: buy it and keep in the fridge, or bring in a small bag every day from home
• Tinned fish: cheap, cheerful and super healthy. Choose mackerel, salmon and sardines for good fats – tuna has all it’s oil removed and has lashing of mercury so best avoided if possible.
• Seeds – add to your salads for that extra crunch and nutrition
• Balsamic, olive oil and lemons – perfect for dressings, they can be kept in the fridge or buy your desk.
• Leftovers – a brilliant way to keep abreast of your portion sizes at home and have lunch for the next day as well.
• Soups/stews/casseroles – ideally homemade – bring in a thermos which keeps contents warm for most of the day

Essentials:

• Tupperware – let it be your friend. The clickable ones are the best and come in different sizes.
• Fresh black pepper and herb grinders – you can get all sorts of condiment flavourings these days, keep one on your desk or in your draw for that extra seasoning.
• Plate, knife and fork: if you don’t have basic cutlery and crockery at work, get some cheap stuff, it’s amazing how different your meal tastes when eaten in china with a real knife and fork rather than a plastic one.
• Thermos flask – no longer the size of a tank, these sleek beauties keep anything vaguely liquid hot for eight hours.

Watch your bank balance swell:

• Get a money-box: Every time you bring your lunch in, put the equivalent money into a money-box.
• Open a savings account: set-up a standing order with the equivalent of the amount you spend monthly the day after you get paid.
• Give yourself a financial goal: make what you spend your savings on matter – whether it’s a holiday, a new coat or a contribution to the mortgage. Make it something to be proud of.

Remember – if you are in control of what you put in your mouth then you are more likely to eat well. Cheap eats do not have to be bland and unhealthy – quite the contrary, they can be super tasty.

Image by RambergMediaImages

Championing the Boiled Egg

Boiled eggs. A staple of my childhood diet – with soldiers for breakfast, in asandwich for lunch or cut into slices or quarters accompanied with salad for dinner – we used to eat them on a regular basis. The countless times I watched and later helped my Mum make the batches of sandwiches for her darts team, with Egg and cress an arbitrary filling. They are the perfect picnic ingredient or snack (with or without the screw of salt) as they are encased in a shell and rarely get squished. Unlike sandwiches they don’t go soggy, all you have to do is tap, crack and go. Of course you have to get rid of the shell, but like all natural waste, it adds to rather than damages the environment.

It seems to me that the boiled egg has fallen down the eschelons of the food tables. I was trying to find an egg slicer today and I got laughed at in a shop when I dared asked if they stocked them. It was as if I was asking them for a chocolate teapot.

I know they are not extinct, yet, as I had found one in a pound shop in Camden, but the wires were slack and would have been as useful as a paper umbrella in a thunderstorm. You need them to be as robust as a harp, and yes, I kid you not, play a tinkling sound when running a thumb or finger down them.

A quick search on Amazon found a couple of options, but it still annoys me that I can’t buy a quality one on the high street. What happens if the wires are baggy – the internet returns hoops of fire rears its ugly head. Which for me, means that it will end up languishing in a cupboard until it gets donated to a charity shop.

Salmonella, Cholesterol & Stink Bombs

One of the reasons for the decline originates in the 1988 salmonella scare when Edwina Curry single-handedly killed the egg industry by stating, without robust evidence that most egg production in the UK suffered from salmonella. A nation of egg-lovers, over 30 million eggs per day, which plummeted by over 60% after her remarks.

The next nail in the egg coffin was the ingrained misconception that cholesterol levels were adversely affected by egg consumption and ought to be limited to 2 per week. The reason for this belief is that eggs contain more cholesterol than other foods, however, it is nutritional nonsense; we will never eat as much cholesterol that our body requires for all the essential jobs that cholesterol performs. This outdated advice was once and for all proved incorrect in research by Surrey University which uncovered that rather than increasing cholesterol levels, eating two eggs a day not only helped reduce weight, it also reduced cholesterol levels.

Also there are the issues of smell – how many of us had the misfortune to have an egg sandwich in our packed lunch on a sunny day? The resulting stinky egg jibes and not forgetting that stink bombs have that eau de rotten egg smell were probably enough to put a nation of kids off for life. And rarely are eggs placed in sandwiches without going through the mayo mill these days. Not being a fan of mayonnaise, I’ve always avoided this variation, preferring plain sliced egg and salad instead. Plus looking at mashed up egg in a sandwich shop is not exactly alluring, and as result of childhood conditioning there is always the salmonella/food poisoning messages in the back of my brain.

Nutrition and Buying Tips

• Eggs are excellent sources of nutrition. After whey they are the easiest form of protein to absorb by the body, excellent news for all you sports people out there.
• Eggs are high in zinc and can be rich in omega-3 fats, if the eggs you buy are from chicken fed with specific meal.
• Eggs are good sources of vitamin K and B vitamins including biotin, thiamine and B12.
• It is essential to the best eggs you can afford. Always, buy free-range or organic eggs. Do not compromise.
• Keep eggs in the fridge or cold cupboard, and eat within 2 weeks of purchase unless super fresh.

Eggs cost from £1.20 – £2.50 for ½ a dozen (6 eggs), depending on where you buy them. I by mine from Borough Market for £1.20/per 1/2 dozen and the average price in a supermarket is £1.80. If you can buy from a farmer, or friend/neighbour who keeps chickens, all the better.

images by zaimoku_woodpile and theilr