It’s back to school time! That means your Pinterest feed is flooded with creative lunchboxes that make you question your skills as a Mom. Combined with the current craze in healthy eating habits, packing a healthy lunch is a must. As a medical professional you know the advantages of eating foods that are rich in protein and many other essential nutrients. Packing a healthy lunch for work will allow you to fit into your favorite scrub pants, but it will also maintain your health and strength throughout the day. Buck the trend of grabbing an energy bar from the hospital vending machine. Here are a few tips to packing a a tasty and nutritious lunch for work:
Mason Jars
Mason jars are the latest greatest thing since sliced bread, used as vases, centerpieces, pen-holders, and oh yes, what they were actually made for, canning fruit! A great way to make use of mason jars is to layer a salad in it at the beginning of the week, and just grab it from the fridge in the morning. Mason jar salads last for up to a week, and can include all the nutrients you need for a healthy lunch. Start at the bottom with dressing, then do the hearty vegetables such as green beans, cucumbers, carrots, bell pepper, etc. Next move on to the lighter components and protiens, for example, tomatoes, quinoa, nuts, tuna, mushrooms, corn, etc. Finally, top it all off with lettuce or your favorite greens. Shake it all up at lunchtime, and voila! A healthy lunch that requires no morning preps.
Sandwiches
Sandwiches are the classic version of the brown bag lunch, but many busy medical professionals don’t have time to slap together some bread and a spread, and for some, the thought of a sandwich sitting in the fridge overnight isn’t very appealing. Simplify your morning sandwich-making by preparing it the night before. If you’re a low maintenance gal who is just fine with PB&J, just check the night before to ensure that the bread is defrosted and you have what you need. For a more exciting sandwich, prepare all the necessary ingredients the night before – make the pesto, slice the tomatoes, cube the cheese, do whatever needs to be done and keep it all together in one corner of the fridge. Then in the morning pile up the components and you’ve got a gourmet sandwich ready to go.
Leftovers
Another great way to ensure that you have a healthy lunch is to take some leftovers to work. If you do not want to have the same thing that you had for dinner as your lunch, you can always take dinner’s main components and remake them into something new. For example, take grilled chicken breast, shred it, mix with your favorite dressing and stick it on a club sandwich. You can make changes to the taste and the nutrient factor by easily adding sauces and salads. Soups are great for work lunches, because you can add all the nutrients you need into a hearty soup; just make sure your workplace has a way to warm it up.
As you consider your lunch for the following day, you might as well extend your planning to the week. Reduce the time spent on worrying about finding clean nursing scrubs and think about your nutritious lunch. By employing extensive planning you can determine whether or not you will need to stock up on juices, sandwich-making foods or enough food to increase the amount of dinner you cook each night. You need to have an idea of what you want to eat and how much. Take out a list and put pen to paper. Plan to pack the perfect lunch!
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