Lunch Monitor

Yesterday I wrote about smoothies for breakfast.  Today, naturally, I want to talk about lunch.

Those of us who work have, essentially, two choices (three if we work somewhere fancy with a dedicated cafeteria)—pack a lunch or eat out.  Both of those choices have advantages and pitfalls.

Packing a lunch requires some planning.  The easiest option, if we have a microwave available, is to bring some of whatever was left over from dinner.  The second-easiest is to repurpose some of that dinner:  last night’s roast chicken becomes today’s sandwich or salad topping, chili becomes burrito filling, roast veggies mix with leftover rice and some dressing.  In some cases, we might want to plan specific lunches and shop accordingly.  I occasionally decide to deal with my challenges in eating leafy greens by declaring salad week.  Packed lunches tend to be cheaper.  We have control over our portion sizes.  We also know about the ingredients and preparation techniques, so we are not surprised to find added sugars or fats hiding between the lettuce leaves.  The challenges of packed lunches are often about non-food issues:  wanting to be social, needing to be away from the desk, finding a good place to picnic, feeling bored with leftovers.

Eating out, on the other hand, offers a plethora of choices.  Most of us have an incredible array of cuisines available to us within walking or easy driving distance.  Restaurants, however, are not generally focused on the healthiest choices, but the tastiest.  “Crispy,” I read somewhere, is the menu descriptive word most likely to appeal to diners, and it is usually about fries rather than lettuce.  Most of the time, restaurant meals have more salt, fat, and sugar than what we would use making those dishes at home and the portions can be really large.  When we eat lunch out, we have to use a fair amount of self-control to choose wisely for our health.

Either way, we need to remember that we are the boss of our food choices.  We can prioritize vegetables and fruits and other whole foods.

Right now, my garden is giving me tons of cherry tomatoes.  I’ve been eating a lot of caprese salad, which I make like this:

Toss together:

About 20 cherry tomatoes, halved

About 10 ciliegene-sized fresh mozzarella balls, halved

½ avocado, diced

2 sprigs basil, chopped

Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste