I wanted to start a revolution with the lunch box.  I love them!  There was this one that was superman and it even had a cape.  I mean... HOW COOL IS THAT!?

* memories~

I loved my metal lunchboxes when i was little, with the matching thermos!  AW !

and then later as a mom, it was my favorite time of year when i would go and buy my kids new school accessories and pack  lunch in their cool new lunch "boxes" ...

When i make meals at home, i usually do TRY to bring the leftovers to work the next day, probably 60% of the time, i do. I also buy frozen "TV" dinners to bring to work and nuke. IF i have errands to run on my lunch-break, then i will run thru the drive-thru and grab a combo meal.

When I went to school the lunches were actually cooked on site at each school,  Most were great and even if they weren't there was mean ol Mrs. Baughman walking around making sure you didn't shove your spinach in your milk carton.

The demise of the lunch box probably started about the time women were becoming a larger presence in the work place.  Part of it may be just time and a labor saving device.

WHO KILLED THE LUNCH BOX? The cheapr paper sack - reusable of course. or the plastic bag one gets at the grocery store - also reusable.  :-)

IF i have errands to run on my lunch-break, then i will run thru the drive-thru and grab a combo meal.  Also a valid reason as it is MOMS who usually devote their lunch breaks to doing the family "running around"

I get up every morning at 5 to make breakfast sandwiches for my husband and son.I pack lunches for both before sending them off to school. My son only gets about a  20 minute lunch and with his school being 600+ over the limit, the whole 20 minutes is spent in line. So he actually prefers a home packed lunch.

when i was young my lunch box represented love from home. it was a bonding tool..

we moved alot and at one point i lived with my grandparents for a year. My grandmother used to scratch little 'I love you' notes in my banannas...I could always count on little treats to make me feel special..if I was having a bad day it always cheered me up...I think kids are missing out by losing these little tokens of the past....

of course if you never knew the hidden love that was put into those boxes i guess you wont miss them too much...kinda sad really.

"when i was young my lunch box represented love from home. it was a bonding tool.."

I had a Scooby Doo one .

--virgil

When I was pregnant I would go by the grocery store on my way to work every day (I worked the swing shift) and just wander the aisles, picking out vast quantities of dairy products and fresh fruit and croissants and pot pies and whatever else I felt like, often blowing $20 at a time.  I was drinking a quart of milk for lunch every day, and gobbling fistfuls of strawberries and buying the big packages of trail mix and snacking on them all through my shift.  I just ate and ate and ate--lunch time was ALL the time for me.  It's a wonder I didn't gain 100lbs, since I also bought a lot of ice cream in all its forms--Ben&Jerry's, ice cream sandwiches, Dove bars, etc.  Then I'd get off work and start my serious eating! 

Before and after that I was able to eat lunch on $2.00-$5.00 a day (mainly TV dinners and Subway,) but for those few months my lunch bill must have been in the neighborhood of $300 a month--almost all from the grocery store, and none of which could have fit in a lunch box.  Those were two-grocery-bag lunches.  Haha! 

Every day I send a small ice chest in the car with the high school students at my house.  Not so much for lunch but for after school and sports practice.  I put in bottles of Gatorade and water plus a small snack.  Usually fruit snacks or granola bars.  I put in enough for them to share with their team mates. 

But am I just thinking like a cheap wad here? Does anyone else get indignant at the thought of spending $250 in groceries just to spend $30 to $40 a week in fast food because you just didn't have the time to pack a lunch? If your not a morning person, pack it the night before!!!   ((( :

I pack a lunch  every day.  I eat something from it every couple of hours or so. 

I usually work through the standard lunch hour. Eating a little something every couple of hours is great for weight control too.

Figure I save about $ 2,000 per year by doing so.

When we were in the army we had NO money so I made up a menu that included all 3 meals for 7 days a week and bought groceries accordingly.  I used a day old bread store for things like bread, Zingers etc and froze them.  Each day I packed a lunch that included whatever was on my list (on the fridge) and dropped in a frozen cupcake thingy.  By lunch time it wwas thawed out and good to go.   Later the kids ate in the cafeteria unless they just wanted a sack lunch.  It was easy and cheap back then.

I ALWAYS packed a lunch for hubby because he worked at the cement plant in Mojave...no option there.

If you're really wondering what happened to lunch pails look no further than here....   http://shop.ebay.com/?_from...

and choose your price range and subject.  

I brown bag it nearly every day, as does my whole family. We also are aghast at how many people seem to eat out a lot of the time, paying more for food that's not nearly as healthy. Makes no sense. There werelocal statistics in the paper recently about the percentage of adults in Kern County who eat fast food x number of times per week. Don't remember the exact numbers cited, but do remember that they were high enough that my wife and I were shocked.

I stand corrected and plead guilty.  You are right, and I am foolishly caught up with this disturbing trend, with, much to my chagrin, no plans to make any immediate changes.   I've become such a slob that I don't even care that I'm being wasteful, frivolous and lazy.  But I don't only mourn the time in which I cared enough to bring my own lunch from home, I mourn the loss of the lunch kit itself. 

I have several Monkees and Beatles lunchkits.  I only wish I had the resolve to use them to pack food into and take to the office.  I hope my behavior and attitude improves by the time my daughter is old enough to go to school.  I'll put the Monkees and Beatles lunch kits to good use by sending them with her, packed with food.  The kids may even think the icons of yore are cool and she'll be the life of the lunch party---on second thought,  she'll stick out like a sore thumb, they may consider her to be a nerd, and besides, I don't want to lose those lunch kits, so scratch that plan. 

Nancy,

I didn't see a Scooby Doo lunch pail.

--virgil

I used to bring lunch from home to my office everyday.  Eating out at lunch time was too counter productive.  I would warm up my leftovers in the microwave and then go back to my desk.   Whenever those leftovers consisted of something special I would anticipate enjoying my lunch which was stashed away in the break room refrigerator.  It really sucks when after thinking about lobster fettuccine and homemade chocolate yogurt all morning you find your lunch has disappeared.    I stopped bringing items that required refrigeration and now I keep a jar of peanut butter and a box of whole wheat crackers in my desk.    I also enjoy a piece of fruit from the backyard trees each day.    

blognroll~ i am willing to bet the old metal style lunch boxes are worth $$

i used mine to beat a brat senseless once after we got off the bus, he deserved it.

I had the Empire Strikes Back metal pale with the R2 D2 Thermos-that sort of dates my K-6 years.  He he he!

was it with a Scooby Doo one ?

--virgil

Oh virgil stop whining.. HERE!  http://shop.ebay.com/i.html...

Good Grief!   Some men are such babies.  {kidding}

I never had a metal lunch box.   I had a pink plastic Skipper lunch box which I converted to a camping first aid kit while in high school.  It is somewhere in my laundry room.   Another plastic lunch box holds my camping wine stems so they don't get broken when we travel. My husband refuses to drink wine out of a plastic wine "glass".  Paper plates and plastic silverware are okay but not plastic wine glasses.

Virgil--why do I have this sneaking suspicion that we are related somehow?  Granted, I have a ginormous family in this town, but still....

Patrick--I guess I should have stated earlier that my office had a policy that we couldn't leave the property for lunch, so "going out for fast food" wasn't really an option, unless you brought it with you before work.  Since hamburgers and fries go soggy in the fridge after a couple of hours, the only "fast food" that could make it until lunch time was cold sub sandwiches and salads.  The entire office would order from The Yellow House or Circle Deli or Too Fat Sandwiches as a group and they would deliver to us, or sometimes pizza or chinese, but we mainly subsisted on what we brought with us from home (primarily Weight Watchers frozen dinners and stuff like that.)  Anyway, that sort of makes my office experience out of the realm of normalcy regarding fast food lunches. 

The job I had before that involved a lot of driving, and I would regularly go all day (10-12 hours) without eating anything at all but with drinking gallons of coffee and smoking copious amounts of cigarettes.  Cigarettes and coffee have made up the bulk of my caloric intake for almost 20 years.  That and binge-ice-cream-eating. 

As for people eating fast food for lunch when they got food at home?  Hey--people can't resist greasy, 40-fat-gram, meat-starch artery-cloggers.  They just can't.

 Thanks, Nancy ... I think this is the one :

http://cgi.ebay.com/1973-Ha...

I should have kept it .

--virgil

RE Kern City and seniors.  There are so many dollar menues available that at times it's just as cheap to hit fast food as it is to cook for one.  Or at least a lot less trouble.  Some places like Taco Bell have reasonable chicen dishes like the new Ranch Chicken Gordita for 89 cents, cheese roll ups for about the same, some wraps, a cup of beans for 99 cents and the drink is FREE.  Subways 5 dollar footlong makes two meals for me.

Some of the time it's healthier for a senior to eat out since I tend to settle for a hot dog and popcorn or a fried spam sandwich.  Some nights a cheese sandwich with chips and a root beer float.

Now and then I starve out for a real meal and do it up right..but not often.  It just isn't worth the energy for just me.

virgil, I say things like that all the time.  The reality is if we'd kept everything that we wish we had we'd have to have at least two airplane hangers leased all these years.

And who knew?  They were just lunch boxes then.  And as mentioned above, a handy weapon to beat up bad little boys.  I used a purse full of lipstick tubes to beat the little boy up in my neighborhood.  We connected up again as adults when he married my best friends sister...LOL.

Patrick, throughout most of my career all meals were cooked and eaten on duty.  The dinner the first night was usually made from something you could turn into lunch the next day.  Most crews shared a common chow bill so leftovers [ for me anyway] were very welcome because the guys I worked with were tighter than fleas ass stretched over a barrel. I think it was around the mid nineties that crews started eating out very often and some stations almost never cooked even though most had great kitchens and appliances.  I never did like to do that because I always was a tight ass.  I guess they felt they were making enough money to blow it on fast food or even restaurant food.  I often felt that people that have to eat out all the  time have a need to  be seen by others.  I still can hardly stand to do the "lunch" thing because of price. My wife on the other hand.....

Just a little over the line, topic wise, sorry.

Once upon a time fast food was cheap. Still is if the dollar menu is to your liking. I started bringing cup-of-soup to work when the break room got a microwave.

Going out, standing in line, waiting for your order, getting back to the work place was just too time-consuming for me. For some coworkers, a hamburger and fries was worth the hassle. Each his own, I guess.

Now that I think of it, I don't see lunch boxes on store shelves anymore. Changing times?

Walmart still has them.  Most have a little freezer thing to keep the food cool.

I had a mini pantry in my overheads when I worked in Wasco.  I kept a lot of tomato soup, vanilla pudding cups and fruit cups.  I also went across the street to the panderia on F st and bought fresh bolilios and made toasted ham and swiss sans in my toaster oven for sandwiches that put Quiznos to shame.

Both my grandsons pack their lunches (one in HS the other in 5th grade). They prefer their own stuff to what's offered at the schools, also the standing in line thing.

I packed a lunch to school 'cause we could not afford 25 cents a day for me to eat in the cafeteria! I could pick one day to "buy" my lunch.  I did get a nickle for milk and the 10 cents once a week for the ice cream cone :-)

About half the people where I work pack a lunch, myself included. I rarely bring leftovers because I prefer a sandwich for lunch. But I know a couple other co-workers bring leftovers, some pretty tasty smelling leftovers at that. I also pack afternoon snacks and enough water to last me through the day (I'm a bit germ-phobic about using the water fountain or break room sink). And I keep a box of tea bags in my office for when that mood strikes me.