How to eat a healthier lunch, even on busy days
Let's face it: For many of us, lunch is about what's easy — grabbing something from the office vending machine or microwaving a frozen meal that looks nothing like the photo on the box.
We want to eat better; we just don't think we have time to prep that perfect lunch.
The key is finding versatile ingredients and taking advantage of shortcuts from the grocery store, says Monique Costello, a certified integrative health coach and culinary nutrition expert with clients throughout the suburbs.
You can prep several different lunches without spending all day in the kitchen, Costello says.
To start, load up on veggies you like and chop them up several different ways. For example, celery. You can cut it into sticks for dipping, slice it for soup or chop it for salad. You can do the same with carrots. If you've got the vegetables and are already cutting, why not vary the shape so you can use them several different ways?
Want to save even more time? Just buy the vegetables already prepped at the grocery store, Costello says.
“They may be more expensive, but if it helps you eat healthier, then why not?” she says. “It will still be less than what you would spend to eat out.”
Next, pick a protein you like. “Try grabbing a rotisserie chicken,” Costello says. “If you've got the time and want to cook your own, that's great. But you can also grab chicken or turkey that's already prepared and save yourself a lot of time.”
You can use the chicken as a salad topper or toss it in a pita. You can also put the chicken and vegetables in a thermos with hot broth and let the combination steam on your desk for a delicious soup.
Costello shares some simple dressing recipes you can mix-and-match with the base ingredients to really change up the flavor. “Store-bought dressings and vinaigrettes are loaded with fats, salts, sugar, fake flavors and colors and harmful food additives and chemicals that are damaging to our systems,” says Costello. “Read the label and see what's in your bottle of dressing; if you can't pronounce it, you don't want to eat it. Plus, once you do it you'll see how easy making your dressing from scratch can be.”
In addition to coaching clients, Costello offers private and group cooking lessons.
On the menu for a week of good lunches in a recent class was carrot noodle salad, chicken clementine salad, chicken ramen soup, stuffed avocado ... all from a few basic ingredients.
So chop, dice, slice, spiralize and shred everything on a Sunday or Monday. Line up the ingredients in containers. Then each morning, just pop them open and grab what you feel like eating that day. “It's all about using the same ingredients in several different ways,” Costello says. “That way, you don't get bored or are locked into eating something you may not feel like. Anything that can be made into a salad can be made into a sandwich, lettuce wrap or a soup.”
Costello suggests using a spiralizer to cut up vegetables to use as a salad base or instead of noodles. She also advises spiralizing onions to save time. “It's an easy way to chop onions: Spiralize a bunch at a time, and place them in a zip-lock bag and freeze,” she says. “Then when you want chopped onions, you pull the bag out and crush the frozen onions in the bag with your hands for instant chopped onions. Voila. Your eyes only had to cry one time for a bunch of onion bags.”
Plus, anything spiralized looks cool, she says.
(Spiralizers are like blenders: The prices run the gamut. Don't feel like you have to invest a lot to experiment.)
The lunch recipes from Costello are about picking from a stock of prepared ingredients, in amounts you prefer, rather than carefully measuring every little thing.
“They key is to start small,” Costello says. “A lot of people get excited and then start with grand plans that are too intimidating. Start with a few vegetables and a chicken. Then later, branch out to the more complicated.”
I took Costello's class because it's not unusual for me to come home from work late in the evening, and starving because I skipped lunch or snacked on whatever miscellaneous food my fellow journalists have stashed on their desks. And once home, I'd eat whatever I could find that required little or no effort (like frozen pizza or a bag of popcorn).
Part of the class covered healthy foods to stock your desk with to help you in an emergency. And her mix-and-match method made sense to me not only for lunch, but also for dinner.
Following her advice, I stuck to the simple and then branched out a bit, especially when I discovered an unknown love of spaghetti squash. I tried different meats, such as turkey, or used whatever vegetables are in season versus the ones I know I like. I've used warm spaghetti squash for dinner and then chilled as a salad base for lunch. I spiralized zucchini, tossed in some chicken, pesto, pine nuts and tomatoes — then used the pine nuts and chicken with chia seeds for a lunch combo the next day.
Costello is right: Anything that can be a salad can be a soup or sandwich ... and a dinner.
Pre-work for healthy lunches
The key is to not go crazy. Start small by buying pre-chopped vegetables or a rotisserie chicken. The easier you make your food prep, the more likely you are to stick with the eating plan.
<b>Weekly</b>• Grab whatever vegetables you like. Chop, slice, dice or spiralize into various shapes to use in soups and salads or for snacking.
• Mix homemade dressings, which will last about a week.
• Have ingredients for soups or stews.
<b>Bi-weekly</b>• Cook grains (quinoa, lentils, rice) and freeze in one-cup portions.
• Purchase or bake chicken, roast turkey or meat of choice (if purchasing rotisserie chicken, buy two and freeze in small portions).