There was previously a “healthy recipe thread” on this board, dealing with healthy recipes for cooking and eating at home. Anyone have some good ideas for healthy lunches you can bring to work, school, play etc? Things that you can eat cold (no microwave available) would be especially appreciated! I really can’t afford to eat out so much, but when i’m doing a lot of training this time of year its hard to go very long without something to eat, and i know that greasy slice of pizza isn’t making me any faster…
I’m all for “weird” food like quinoa tempeh couscous etc.
My husband and I are both triathletes. This is what I send in my husband’s food bag each day to take to work. This covers a breakfast (after biking 25 miles to work or swimming for an hour), lunch (after running for 50 minutes) and afternoon snack. I’m not sure he eats all of it each day. Beware it is repetitive and uninteresting but keeps him from McDonalds (note, as a smaller female I take similar foods but not nearly so many of them). I think it is very important to take enough foods so that there is no build-up of hunger and no temptation to go to McDonald’s, eat candy, etc.
bagel, turkey sandwich on 100%whole wheat bread with a small amount of low-fat mayonaise, 2 or 3 pieces of fruit, yogurt, one or two Quaker Oatmeal breakfast squares. Sometimes also some dried fruit (dried apricots), sometimes a can of sardines and two pieces of whole wheat bread instead of a turkey sandwich, sometimes a baggie of raw carrots, sometimes a Cliff bar instead of the Quaker oatmeal squares (oatmeal squares are less expensive), sometimes low fat pastrami or roast beef in the sandwich instead of turkey.
prepare 1/3 lb of pasta. then mix a can of tuna with low-fat mayo, and chopped celery and chives if you’re so inclined. combine tuna with pasta. put in fridge. eat.
I do something kinda like that. I use a can of diced tomatoes, some onions, garlic, etc and add a can of tuna with pasta/or rice it can be had hot or cold… Good stuff.
Nice fresh bread like rye or any european bread that has a good taste though not heavy, cut into serving portion and if its a roll cut in half.
Toast very lightly then rub 1/2 tomato over surface, making sure to get good coverage, squash it in. Piece of lettuce but not iceburg, any other with a decent taste. Fresh roast turkey or chicken slices topped with something like roasted peppers, red or green. Nice slice of fresh cheese not processed cheese but real stuff way better if its goats or sheeps cheese. Dribble very lightly with extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt.
If you want extra tase go for a dip of something like tapenade or halepeno salsa.
There you go real food with No “artificial” food stuffs like low fat mayos or taste enhancers.
1 can each of garbanzo beans, black beans, kidney beans; drained and rinsed
1 med green pepper, diced
1/4 c sugar (splenda works well)
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t salt (optional)
1/4 - 1/3 t dried mustard or 1/2 t of prepared mustard
1/2 t tarragon
1/4 t basil
Mix all together and chill to blend the spices. I’ll take a Gladware container of it and another bigger container (old Club’s Choice frozen cookie dough) filled with a few handfuls of the prewashed bagged spinach. Tear it into smaller pieces so it’s easier to eat. When it’s time to eat, combine the beans in the spinach container and ENJOY!
Here’s my favorite…
Turkey Chili over Whole Wheat Pasta!
Brown 2 lbs of lean Ground Turkey in Olive Oil.
Add onions,celery,carrots.
1 package of Lawrys or Schilling Mild Chili Mix
1 Big Can of Diced Tomatoes,or Tomato Sauce
Black,or Red kidney Beans
Cook this for 40 mins to 1 hr over low heat…add 1/2 can of Coors Light after 15 mins.
Serve this over Wheat Pasta or Brown Rice…Man I live on this stuff.
This and Oatmeal everyday for 12 years.
My cholesterol is so low…that my Dr. has to guestimate what it is.
Last check was barely 100!..almost all of it was HDL.
Its good cold or room temp too.
Something that I like is either tabouleh (bulgar with tomatos, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice) or a variation of it that has some dried fruit, nuts and garbanzo beans to make it a little more substantial. It’s quite tasty. Usually I just bring left-overs from dinner the night before, but those require a microwave.
Sunday morning before we start the day we fire up about two pounds of mixed organic dry beans in the crock pot and set it for 8 hours. On the counter right next to it is the rice cooker where we fill it to capacity (10 cups cooked) with organic brown rice and set it so it’s done in 8 hours. Then we wash and spread out 1/2 a dozen organic sweet potatos and drop them in the oven at 250 degrees. After about two hours of errand or work out we pull the potatos out of the oven. We keep pre-cooked non-hormone turkey sausages in the fridge that only require heating for the warmth or can be eaten cold.
So all week long we have super high fiber, high vitamin staples with a little fat from the sausages to simply augment with some fresh fruit, cultured soy (dairy free yogurt basically), crunchy veggies like carrots, raw broccoli or Jicima and we don’t have to stress out over what’s for lunch.
When the weather is cruddy we often spen an entire day on the weekend cooking soups and other big batch meals for the freezer. We package them in 1.5 quart gladware so there is always two big servings that can be thawed quickly for variety during the week.
Good luck. Your body is a temple, feed it like one!
Every 2 weeks I go through 2lbs+ nuts (almonds + walnuts). Figs go really well with nuts. So do dates. Semi-sweet chocolate chips are wicked if you have the extra sweet tooth. I eat the raw, unroasted kind. You can get the oil-roasted variety for more calories. 1 nut = ~6 yummy calories.
I also used to eat 1 advocado per day. I’d use it like butter/mayonaise over my bread and lay some roma tomates, cheese, alfafa with cayenne pepper & salt. Yum! Too bad tomatoes are so expensive in Vancouver. Are they pricey in your neck of the woods? That hurricane in Florida hurt us all!
Make salads with chick peas that you make from dried bulk + quinoa. Throw in some parsley, nuts, dried fruit, some dressing and you’re all set.
Got this from “The Man” himself Dave Scott at a Triathlon Clinic:
Candybar substitute:
1 part unsalted peanuts
1 part walnuts
1 part almonds
1/2 part pumpkins seeds (roasted or raw)
1/2 part sunflower seeds (unsalted)
1/2 part dried cranberries (or other dried fruit)
1/4 part flax seed (grind them first otherwise you body won’t be able to digest them, and the volume of 1/4 cup of flax seeds turns into almost 1.5 cups once ground)
Store in frirge
a palm full will provide you with most of the essential oils and will stave off any hunger pains than might drive you to a vending machine
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