Laptop Lunches

This isn't a recipe, but it is food related, so I thought I'd share.   Last year at some point our daycare provider asked us to start providing lunches for Will in exchange for no increase in daycare fees.  So, we had to go find a lunch box for Will.  After reading my friend Jill's food blog (about healthy snacks for kids - here's the link if you're interested:  http://www.healthykiddosnacks.com/  ) I looked up buying a Laptop Lunch, which is an Americanized (larger) version of the traditional Japanese bento box.  I loved Will's so much, I went out and bought one for myself a week later, and I've been extremely happy with it since.  We can pack plenty of food into one of these to keep me going strong all day long, and it's made a big difference in how healthy my lunches are.  We still fill it with leftovers, but having the different internal containers encourages us to eat more veggies and less starch.  So, instead of filling a whole tupperware with leftover pasta with a few pieces of broccoli on the side, I get one container of pasta, one container of broccoli, another container with fruit, and one more with something else, usually some kind of protein.  The only 2 things I don't like about it are that the closing/latch mechanism isn't great, and the containers are plastic, so I don't like heating food up in them.  That said, I pretty much always just eat my lunch at room temp, so it's not a big deal for me.

I got ours from Amazon.  Here's a link to one, though if you just search Laptop Lunch you can find them for all different prices and in all different colors. 

http://www.amazon.com/Laptop-Lunches-Bento-Navy-Stripe/dp/B003ZWL7P2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1334976585&sr=8-5

Will's came with the insulated carrying case, which has the added bonus of helping to keep the main container closed.  The preschool we're likely moving him to this summer provides all food again (we're a little bummed about that, since it's nice to know exactly what and how much he's eating, but oh well), and I'm looking forward to taking over his carrying case for my lunch box when he doesn't need it anymore.