Transcription:
How to Pack Healthy Lunches for Work or School

Melanie Cole (Host):  Whether you’re packing lunch for your school-aged children or for yourself to take to work, what are the basics of eating a healthy lunch? What does that really mean, and what is good to take to work or to school that will last throughout the morning and still be fresh and healthy for your lunch satisfaction? My guest today is Summit Medical Group internist and nutrition specialist, Dr. Solmaz Amirnazmi. Welcome to the show, Dr. Amirnazmi. Tell us about healthy lunches. What constitutes a healthy lunch, and is it better to take your lunch or better to buy it in the cafeteria or somewhere around work? 

Dr. Solmaz Amirnazmi (Guest):  Hi, Melanie. I just wanted to say thank you again so much for having me. It’s a great question. In terms of taking lunch versus buying it, it depends on whether or not you’re making the right choices. It’s not automatically healthier to bring your lunch than to buy it. But if you’re packing things like fried chicken or Cheetos or a bag of chocolate chip cookies, that’s obviously not healthy or nutritious, so it’s better to hit up the salad bar at the cafeteria and load up on all those fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and some lean protein like grilled chicken or tuna, and then a splash of olive oil and vinegar. Generally speaking, packing lunch affords you a few clear advantages. You have control over portion sizes, you have maximizing your nutrition, and then most importantly, you get to customize it to your palate. You can pack your favorite things that you like. If you like snap peas and almonds, you can stack up on those when you’re shopping and then include them in your daily lunch. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever buy your lunch; it just means that you have to do a little bit more planning ahead. So, knowing what’s being served in the cafeteria at the time; if possible, bringing home a copy of the menu or printing out a copy and then looking it over to determine what the options that are healthier look like. Is there grilled chicken? Is there a cup of lentil soup versus going for the slice of pizza or the fried mozzarella sticks? Then in terms of the food that constitute a healthy lunch, there’s no particular formula for that. I like to say that first of all, it’s really important to fully enjoy your food versus scarfing it down because that leads to mindless eating and then excessive calorie consumption. Being mindful when you’re eating, paying attention to the cues that tell you you’re full, have had enough, and also avoiding oversized portions. A great trick is to use smaller plates and glasses. In terms of foods, really, a variety of whole real foods is key. You want to focus on things like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean protein. If you consume dairy, go for low-fat or fat-free options. In terms of milk, yogurt, they also are excellent calcium sources. Just as a side note, I was going to say that foods with protein include both animal sources—so meat, poultry, seafood—and then there’s also plant sources. You have things like beans, soy products, nuts, seeds. You want to steer clear of processed food, the things that are high in saturated fats and things with lots of concentrated sweets. You want to really stay away from those things. The thing that I tell my patients is that food is not really meant to come out of boxes or cans in general, things that have a super long shelf life. In other words, things that don’t expire or rot or go bad are things that you want to avoid, because they’re not only packed with chemicals and unnecessary ingredients that your body doesn’t need, they’re also generally overpriced and they have wasteful packaging. You want to just go for real foods—broccoli, Greek yogurt, fresh cilantro, apples, things like that. They have short shelf lives and those are the sorts of things you want to be stocking up on, not boxes of instant soup and frozen meals and things. Other tips, you want to use salt sparingly. You want to choose low sodium options when available. Then finally, a source of lots of unnecessary calories are these fruit juices, obviously sodas. It’s just amazing how many unnecessary calories are loaded in these drinks and they’re void of any nutritional value. I just tell my patients to invest in a large water jug and infuse their water with those fresh, favorite fruits and veggies—pineapple, mango, strawberries. You can do lime and cucumber wedges. You can do some fresh thyme or other fresh herbs so you stay hydrated that way and you save yourself a lot of extra calories. 

Melanie:  What a great tip to add these fresh foods not only to the drinks to keep yourself hydrated, but the look of them makes them much more appealing. Now, as much fresh foods as we would like to add to our lunches, Dr. Amirnazmi, people bring sandwiches. They just do. And there’s sandwich shops all over the place. Is the sandwich a healthy choice for lunch, and if it’s not, or if it is, how do we make a healthy sandwich? 

Dr. Amirnazmi:  Again, that’s a great question. I’ll start talking about when you’re making a sandwich. It depends on what you’re using to make that sandwich. When you’re using bread—because breadless sandwiches too, which I can get into—but when you’re using bread for sandwiches, you want to make sure that you’re using whole grains, like whole wheat bread and checking the ingredient label, making sure that whole wheat flour is listed there. Because unfortunately, just because a bread claims to be whole wheat or whole grain doesn’t necessarily mean it is. What you should be looking for is labels that read 100 percent whole wheat or 100 percent whole grain. Again, this will have whole wheat flour listed in the ingredient label. The reason why you want these breads is because they’re cholesterol free, they’re low in fat, they have tons of fiber, minerals and vitamins, and these are the ones that are really helping prevent against so many chronic diseases, like diabetes and heart disease. The other thing you want to look at too, I kind of touched on this, but sodium content. So, breads that have less than 200 mg of sodium per slice. In terms of what to put in between the bread slices, I like to get creative. There’s only so many tuna sandwiches one can eat in a week. In terms of how to prep ahead, you can get some grilled or poached chicken ready ahead of time on the weekend and then change it up on a day-to-day basis. You can use some of the chicken to make a sundried tomato, artichoke, and olive chicken wrap one day. The next day, make some curry chicken salad, substituting Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise. You can throw in some apples, some pecan, some cilantro in there, then put it into a whole wheat pita. The next day, you can do just a clean chicken sandwich with a few slices of avocado and tomato. It really hits the spot. For the vegetarians out there, there’s hummus. It’s one of my favorites. Just add some tomatoes or roasted red peppers and cucumbers. Then you have a delicious and simple sandwich. Another one is just your ordinary beans. They sound so boring and you’re just like, “Oh, a bean sandwich.” But you just take some beans, take some cannellinis and mash them up with some olive oil and some balsamic and then add some feta cheese and some fresh herbs and you’ve got a delicious sandwich. Some avocado in there. This is again something that you can prep ahead on the weekend and have ready to place into a whole wheat pita pocket. Grilled portabellas are another favorite of mine. You can get those ready on the weekend and have grilled portabella sandwiches for lunch. And just about any nutritious salad can be made into a delicious sandwich the following day. For example, I love to throw together arugula, avocado, cilantro, tomato, corn, scallion, and then if you have the pieces of chicken, you can make this into a chicken wrap and it’s really heavenly. Don’t forget that sandwiches don’t necessarily have to use bread. There are so many breadless options. You just have to be creative. You can use lettuce wrap. You can hollow out cucumbers and stuff with tuna. Or you can even use slices of bell pepper as an alternative to sandwich bread slices. Really, your imagination… there’s no limit here, it’s very exciting. 

Melanie:  Now, what about add-ons? You’ve got your great, healthy sandwiches and those are great bits of advice on ways to make sandwiches, different every day and not use the same thing all the time and really getting those healthy proteins with the good grains and a lot of vegetables to load it up and make it more filling, but what about those add-ons? What about granola bars or chips? Are there any healthy chips out there? Do you like pretzels? Talk about the add-ons and include even Go-Go squeeZ and things like that that kids -- we like to throw those in kids’ lunches, Dr. Amirnazmi. So speak about the add-ons in the last couple of minutes here. 

Dr. Amirnazmi:  Absolutely. Great question. There are so many things that come to mind. In particular, the thing that really comes to mind is edamame. Kids love it. It’s so fun. They love the feel of it, they love the texture, and they love how how it’s eaten. A handful of edamame, fresh fruit, and non-fat plain yogurt. They have those fat-free organic Greek yogurt individual portions. And you can bring a piece of fruit. In terms of adults, I like to keep a bag of nuts and honey at the office to add in. Obviously, they have those individualized Greek yogurt containers with the honey and you could just pack a banana or apple and they can be added in. Then things like cut veggies with the small container of hummus. You can do spiced roasted nuts, pecans, walnuts, almonds. The sky is the limit there. You can do fruit salads with fresh mint and a squeeze of lemon or an apple sandwich with nut butter in between and a drizzle of honey. Or you can even make a big batch of homemade trail mix. That’s what I do—some cashews, some pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, a few dark chocolate pieces thrown in for taste, and of course the antioxidant properties. In terms of chips, typical potato chips obviously you want to steer clear of. They have saturated fats, trans fats. You want to go towards… the trend now is really towards healthier-based vegetable chip alternative, like kale chips, even Brussels sprouts chips. Believe it or not, I’ve tried making those. In the carbohydrate world, though, a healthier alternative will be making something like pita chips. Obviously, you can buy them, but you can also make them on your own. It’s just really easy. All you need is some olive oil and your favorite spices. You just preheat your oven at 375, combine some olive oil, some garlic, a pinch of salt, or you can just use any of your favorite spices—paprika, oregano, or cumin. Or if you have a sweet tooth, you can do some olive oil with cinnamon and sugar. Then just brush, coat each pita both sides, or using your hands toss them in a bowl and then you can lay them on the baking sheet and place them in the oven for 10 minutes. You also asked a question about granola bars. There are so many snack bars, granola bars out there. That’s an excellent question. Just because the label’s saying that something’s all natural or healthy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you because so many are packed with ridiculous amounts of sugar and they really don’t have the amount of fiber or protein that you hoped or thought that they did. The rule of thumb here is really you want to look for bars with three or more grams of fiber and five or more grams of protein, and then less sugar is better. You really want under 10 grams of sugar, but under eight is even better. Low amounts of fat, no saturated fat. Again, here, I try to make my own because you have control over the nutrients and the ingredients, so then you can tailor it to your palate, whether you like pumpkin seeds or almonds or dates, and kind of just go with what you really enjoy. Those are my tips for that. 

Melanie:  Well, thank you so much for being with us today. You’re listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to summitmedicalgroup.com. That’s summitmedicalgroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.