What to put in lunch box? Can't spoil on me in 4 hours.

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What are some good lunches to pack in a lunch box that will last till i actually get to eat at noon? I'd think somthing with eggs/meat would spoil on me.? What do you pack?

thanks.

Specializes in School Nursing.

^^Frozen water bottles work well also

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

Or you can do what the staff where I work does. Take your enormous lunch bag and shove it into the overstuffed fridge preferably on top of the lunches that are in plastic grocery sacks because those of us who bring our lunches in said sacks really do prefer our sandwiches squashed and our fruit bruised to inedibility. :banghead:

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No, don't squish their stuff. Just move it to the counter. Preferably at 8:05. Then leave the break room humming, Another One Bites the Dust. :D

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Specializes in ED; Med Surg.

Or throw it out like a certain charge nurse I know does..."well there was no name and date on it". Uh, yeah there was...see?

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
No, don't squish their stuff. Just move it to the counter. Preferably at 8:05. Then leave the break room humming, Another One Bites the Dust. :D

If I could quadruple kudos you I would. Oh, and you owe me a new keyboard.

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so those ice packs can keep a ham sandwich fresh from 8am till 12pm?

It will be fine with one of those.

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Everyone's pointed out how you can take cold but I just wanted to mention the other side of things. I Like to pack leftovers often. You can buy thermos type containers that keep things hot for 5 hours (look at Target, Walmart). I love to pack pastas this way. If you get a lunch bag with multiple compartments you can take hot/cold on the same day and pair it with a salad.

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Specializes in SDU, Tele.

wraps!!!!! chicken wrap, tuna wrap, steak wrap, whatever! and you can stuff it with anything--rice, beans, lettuce, tomato, peppers, etc.

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sorry, just taken aback. my kids were making their own lunches to take to school by third grade. nobody ever got food poisoning from a tuna sandwich or some hard-boiled eggs or pb&j or yogurt or ham and cheese or leftover fried chicken or beef stew or anything else, with no refrigerators or ice packs involved. basic sanitation was the rule in our kitchen anyway (think: clean technique :D). saves a lot of waste in the bargain. i can't think when the last time was i saw moldy bread, since we always use a no-touch technique to get it out of the bag:idea:.

i recommend this to the op. basic sanitation at the point of origin will be quite adequate to protect you from food-borne illness for half a day (or more); there are far worse (and pervasive) threats to your well-being than room-temperature lunch.

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If you don't want to mess with hot/cold you can pack basic non-spoilage foods...pb&j, crackers, apple, banana, mixed nuts, breakfast bars...basically anything that you can find in the non-refrigerated section at the store. I always keep crackers or a granola bar in my backpack for snack emergencies. :D

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
sorry, just taken aback. my kids were making their own lunches to take to school by third grade. nobody ever got food poisoning from a tuna sandwich or some hard-boiled eggs or pb&j or yogurt or ham and cheese or leftover fried chicken or beef stew or anything else, with no refrigerators or ice packs involved. basic sanitation was the rule in our kitchen anyway (think: clean technique :D). saves a lot of waste in the bargain. i can't think when the last time was i saw moldy bread, since we always use a no-touch technique to get it out of the bag:idea:.

i recommend this to the op. basic sanitation at the point of origin will be quite adequate to protect you from food-borne illness for half a day (or more); there are far worse (and pervasive) threats to your well-being than room-temperature lunch.

actually, they just did a study about the safety of the lunches that kids were bringing to school and the results were appalling. i'll try to find the link for you but it was really gross. of course you never know the cleanliness of the parents who were preparing them but why take a chance? :eek:

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there's a difference between finding microbes in school lunches and actual illness resulting from same. :D.

now, how many deadly illnesses did they contract in these seething slurries of germiness?

there are plenty of studies to show that children who grow up with pets have fewer illnesses and fewer allergies. in the developing world, the incidence of pediatric atopy and asthma skyrockets in one generation after worms are eradicated from schoolchildren-- but not in untreated adults or neighboring populations who still carry their normal commensals. every first grade teacher can tell you which kids didn't go to preschool-- not because they don't know their numbers or letters, but because they spend their first year in a mixed population getting sick. in a recent cholera outbreak in a resort area in indonesia, about 200 people were affected, and the only ones that died, that did not respond to ordinary iv fluids and support, were the japanese, that notoriously germ-phobic culture, where every piece of clothing you can buy comes with embedded antimicrobials, where people wear masks on the subway, and doctors don't tell you what your diagnosis is. many, many studies show that the majority of people, men and women, do not wash their hands after handling or wiping their genitals in the toilet. if so, since we are in constant contact with humans, how come we aren't all down for the count with gi disease all the time? don't even get me started on our favorite germ-swapping practices, all related to reproduction and all pleasurable. there's probably a reason for that.

more studies are indicating that the immense numbers of chemicals, including antimicrobials, we are exposed to are --gee, i know this will come as a shock-- bad for us. the tremendous growth of resistant organisms-- heard of that? "kills 99.5% of household germs!" what are those other ones doing? multiplying, that's what.

so you ask for an extra napkin for your silverware at the restaurant? who handled that napkin between the dryer and your table, and how? so you put your silverware on the edge of your plate instead of your table? who handled the edge of that plate? or the silverware, for that matter? so you think there are "butt germs" on the vinyl banquettes at the country buffet? does your butt slide onto them, and then do you touch your pants, or your purse, or the car seat that your pants just sat on after your meal? does your hand that helped you slide into your booth then touch the salt and pepper? did the hands of the people who sat there before you arrived? do you touch the rails on stairs, the buttons on elevators, try on clothes in department stores? do you just get the sterile ones, or maybe did someone else touch them too? what did they do with their hands before that?

you can see where i'm going with this. actual pathogens are bad. i'm not advocating that we should go back to wells on the street corners that dispense hepatitis and typhoid with every bucket. i'm not saying we take semmelweiss and pasteur out of the medical and nursing curricula. i'm not saying we shouldn't change enteral feeding bags really often, give up scrubbing before surgery, forget glutaraldehyde in the endoscopy suite, use linens from off a hospital floor, or save money in surgicenters by making single-use vials and lancets multi-use.

but honest to god, this phobia about germs, all germs, is ridiculous. there's increasing evidence that your gut and skin bacteria (and btw, how did they get there and from where, huh?) have beneficial effects. people evolved to live with commensals like worms; our immune systems are built and maintained to work with that. if you don't let them do what they are on guard to do, they are weakened when we need them, or they go looking for something else to do, and that's when the trouble starts.

maybe we should start a campaign to have people outside of hospitals stop washing their hands so much, in the interest of the overall public health. boost the collective immune system, and the whole population benefits. it's what immunization was before jenner-- exposure to germs makes your immune system make antibodies. so get out there-- pick your nose, scratch before you make dinner for your family, stick your fingers in the batter to taste it, then do it again. pat the dog, then form the meatballs and roll out the pie crust. don't panic if your kid has a permanent snot-nose the first three years of her life-- she'll probably never be sick much again. let your grandchild gnaw on your fingers even if you haven't just slathered them with alco-gel first (come to think about it, how good is alco-gel for a baby, anyway?) go play in the dirt, swim in a pond. it's a big bacterial-laden world out there. if you want a decent immune system, don't live in a bubble...or delude yourself that you can.

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