Eating Healthy at Work
By
Eating a healthy lunch at work can be challenging. If you’re like me, you have ready access to low-cost restaurants near your office, making the choice to eat out each day very tempting. In addition, you find it difficult to plan out and make meals, which includes also making the time to actually get the food from the grocery store.
The problem with eating out everyday is that you end up spending a lot more money than you need to, and it can take a toll on your health. In most cases, you end up eating too many calories, and the food usually isn’t that healthy.
Over the next several weeks (and hopefully months), I’m going to try to transition from eating out, to making and bringing my own lunch. Since I’ll be making my own lunch, I’ll have control over the types of food I eat. Since my goal is to not only save money, but to also lose weight, be more energetic, and eat healthier, I’m going to focus on only making vegetarian meals.
Vegetarian Lunch Ingredients
After mulling through several vegetarian cookbooks – Vegan Lunch Box, The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, and Vegetarian Meals for People-on-the-Go – I was able to extrapolate the main ingredients that I’ll need to make simple pastas, salads, wraps, and sandwiches. Those ingredients include:
Grains
- Sandwich Bread (Whole Grain)
- Wheat Tortillas (for Wraps)
- Couscous
- Flax Seed
Pastas
- Spiral (Wheat if Possible)
- Tortellini
Spreads & Cheeses
- Hummus
- Pimiento Cheese
- Cream Cheese (Low Fat, Flavored)
- Goat Cheese
- Parmesan Cheese
- Nut Butter (Peanut or Almond)
Fruits & Vegetables
- Beets
- Bell Peppers (Raw and Roasted)
- Blood Oranges
- Broccoli
- Brussel Sprouts
- Cauliflower
- Cucumbers
- Garlic
- Olives (Black)
- Onions
- Peas (Frozen)
- Romaine Lettuce
- Spinach
- Sweet Potato
- Tempeh
- Tofu
- Tomatoes
Meat Substitute
- Tempeh
- Turkey, Chicken, and Meat Flavored Tofu Slices (Tofurky)
Beans, Legumes, and Nuts
- Refried Beans
- Pistachios
- Almonds
- Walnuts (for Salad)
These ingredients provide a multitude of sandwich, wrap, salad, and pasta combinations. I’ll highlight some or many of them as I make them throughout each week.
A key factor that will enable this to be successful, and something that was crucial in picking the recipes and ingredients, is the necessity for these meals to be quick and simple to make.
Simple Vegetarian Cookbooks
These are the three main books I used to compile my list of foods and lunch recipes. Click on any of the books to learn more about them.
