Avoiding the Fast Food Seduction- Jar Salads
My 'real job' before having babies back to back, a job I'll most likely be returning to sooner than later- was territory sales. I basically lived in my car during the day. An average day was a full 8 hours of driving covering about 100 or so miles round trip. I passed food, glorious food all day long. And to boot, I was IN restaurants all day long. It's pretty seductive to walk in to a bar and see some dripping moist chicken wings looking you in the face right around lunch time. It's cheap, delicious, convenient... and HORRIBLE for you. I was working out but not losing weight. And no matter how cheap the food was that I picked- it always adds up at the end of the week. Bringing food with me was inconvenient because I could neither keep it cold, nor heat it up at all. I was forced to eat sandwiches or stop and eat at an account more often than not.
My husband's issues were the same but for different reasons. He had no desire to utilize refrigeration at his work. Space, cleanliness, and theft are real issues there. He had also no desire to heat anything up- his breaks are in 15 minute shifts and with 50+ people in the same general eating area all at the same time, by the time he'd get to warm up his food, he wouldn't have time to eat it. And again, 50 men using one microwave... I'd be afraid to touch the thing, let alone USE it. (I'd be the person spraying Lysol in a 3 foot radius around everything before I touched it.) My husband, bless his heart- when he does actually agree and remember to take food to work with him, shoves it into a plastic grocery bag and goes. If I told you he's survived the last 13 years at work on RedBull, apples, and tuna packets- I would not be lying nor exaggerating. It's pretty pathetic, and I'm pretty sure if you strained all the mercury from ALL that tuna out of his blood stream, he could keep a thermometer company supplied for quite a while. It's just... gross. Having to have the diet changes I had, it all trickles down to the rest of the family. More fresh fruits and veggies, less fried food, less bread. So if I had my way, everyone would be brown bagging a fresh home made meal every day- even if it gave me lots of extra work to do. Then, while we were staying in Chicago for several months while our first son was at Lurie Children's Hospital, I lived on salad from this one local company. They were called Farmer's Fridge. All of their offerings are made fresh and stocked all over the city in refrigerated vending machines. The salads themselves were inspired by the layered mason jar salads that have been making their rounds on the internet. They were DELICIOUS... but expensive. I also felt bad for the amount of waste they generate. (Granted, the company offers a recycling program, but still... why plastic when you can reuse glass so much easier?) I had one of these salads on me at all times. No joke. I think I was addicted to the convenience, the deliciousness, and entertained by the whimsy of eating a salad out of a jar. It inspired me to do them for myself when I returned home. The best thing about these salads is you can make them a couple days ahead of time and just add the meat (should you choose to eat meat) the day before or the day of. With so many amazing and delicious options for you to create whatever you want, why would you want to eat fast food? Couple that mason jar salad with a great infusion water bottle (the kind you shove cut fruit into a straining compartment and it makes you all natural flavored water- for those of us that just don't like the taste of water. HERE is an example.) and you've got yourself a pretty tasty lunch option. My husband's objection to this, of course, was transport. How can he transport glass safely? How does he keep it cool but not frigid? I found this neat little unassuming lunch bag online. Dual compartment, insulated. Not fancy. Just functional. I can put an ice pack in the bottom, the food in the center, and a water bottle on the side and go. Literally all he has to remember is to grab the thing on his way out. For me, I'm of course a little more complicated. I can keep my meds in the bottom compartment along with an ice pack, and the bag is large enough to hold a jar salad, a sushi roll, and several small snacks. It also folds down flat. It takes no space at all when collapsed and full, it's smaller than the purse I carry. I figured out of course much after I stopped breastfeeding and pumping, that this bag is amazing to carry milk in. You can see the bag by clicking HERE. The variety of what you can make into a salad is endless. I've made so many wonderful creations that I'm rather excited to start work again to have an excuse to make these for myself again. I've included some examples and the basic salad structure in the gallery below. If you have any amazing recipes for this option, let us know at mommygyver@gmail.com!
And here's a few photos of my cute little lunch bag:
