How do you pack a lunch
 

I was wondering if anyone takes lunch with them. If they do; what do you bring? How do you bring it? Also how far does it have to travel? I usually just leave something at work. I am wondering if it might be feasible to bring it in. That way I could be a little more flexible with the menu.

Tupperware container. Usually a salad with some protein, in a plastic bag in my backpack. Ride is less than an hour (20 km).

I assume the same way anyone takes a lunch with them. I decide what I want to have for lunch, it's usually leftovers from the fridge, and I stuff it in a tupperware container and throw it in my bag.

I must be misunderstanding the question, because I don't know how this could be something to question. Is the asker someone who goes out to lunch everyday and has never packed a lunch anywhere before?

My ride currently is about 90 minutes one way. Still not sure how that applies to lunch though. Lunch is perfectly happy to travel since it doesn't have to walk, it's getting a free ride so it doesn't care how far.

+1 on the leftovers, I have two panniers one has a change of clothes with rain gear just in case. The other has tupperware with lunch, an apple, a banana, yogurt and a 1L bottle for water at work. All and all I think my Cross check weighs in at 35-40lbs. I have a 7 mile route to work at about 30 minutes so everything stays pretty cold, if it were longer I might use an insulated bag.

I use a back pack (momentum 34) and bring my lunch in everyday (same as before I biked). I fit a lunch bag with some sort of salad, with enough room in the pack for a liter of smoothie and a 16oz coffee thermos on either side of the bag. I think the key is having enough expansion to have your lunch setup and still have plenty of room for all of the variables (gym stuff, work clothes in the warmer weather, etc.).

From home refrigerator to work refrigerator takes about an hour and fifteen and I have not had any issues keeping my lunch chilled.

i have an insulated lunch bag that i put my lunch in (usually salad, protein, and a piece of fruit, sometimes leftovers) and i then put the lunch bag in my pannier (or my backpack if i ride my road bike). my commute distance is 5 miles one-way.

I made extra Enchiladas this weekend and packed a bunch and some Mexican rice in tupperware on Mon. Tue and Wed I can leave my pack at home. I usually try and take 2-3 days worth of food in at a time as it's nice to ride without a pack.

small collapsible lunch bags found in many CVS, Kmart, Walmart etc.
reusable ziplock style sandwich bags
tinfoil
paper towel
the less you carry on a daily basis, the better, but food can be hard to stock up on at the office
one trick I used, was buying a cpl dunkin donuts wake-up wraps & throwing them in the freezer at work. they were easy to microwave as a mid morning or afternoon snack. was also lucky to be able to walk to Starbucks for snacks but they are expensive

This ^^^

Typically, I bring the city bike with panniers once a week to stock up. Daily I'd bring coffee and smaller items in my Chrome Citizen bag using a small insulated lunch bag to keep the yogurt from getting hot on those July mornings, or freezing on those January mornings. My commute was ~10 miles one-way.

I drive now but when I bike I bring the same general stuff: a chicken cutlet or meatless fungi cutlet (not as bad as it sounds) cut in half & put ea half in a sep. ziplock bag w a small lettuce wedge. this way I can space out when I eat the halves, instead of all at once. another baggie of baby carrots & yet another baggie with a larger lettuce wedge. box of yogurt covered raisins & a granola bar. the bags are reusable. everybody's food is different. mine is pretty sparse cuz I drive to work & sit in a chair all day (except for a 20 min gym workout at lunchtime. usually eat half on my way to the gym & the other half when I run out for coffee in the afternoon) (the granola bar goes with my coffee when I get back to the office from the coffee run. the raisins, larger lettuce wedge & carrots are for the drive home)

I try to bring more than one day's worth of lunches also, especially on the days I have panniers. I also have the benefit of my own fridge at work. Having lunches here already means that I can ostensibly ride without any burden, but I rarely do. My backpack has become somewhat of a security blanket for me, with my phone, wallet, tubes, levers, mini tool, etc.

I bought one of these last spring. Love it. it goes with me all the time. I used it as my insulated cooler on my 3 week cycle tour last year. As a trunk bag, those silly little panniers do come in handy occasionally.

Seymour Oceanweave Trunk EXP15+ - Trunk Bags - Bags/Panniers - Products - Axiom Cycling Gear

Hope this helps,

-Snuts-

I only get lunch out once a week...so I'm usually packing it. Either some sort of leftovers or a deli or tuna sandwich, a yogurt, some sort of carb (chips, pretzels, rice cake), fruit (apples, grapes, clementines, whatever we bought for the week), and something else - be it hummus, guacamole, kimchi (just made a bunch of cucumber kimchi the other night), and I should be eating more veggies.
I pack it all in an insulated bag with a freeze pack and into one of the panniers it goes!

I only like packing left overs if I have really good ones to choose from. Otherwise I prefer to save those for dinners. I've never had a container leak on me yet. I have these glass ones with an airtight lid that do really well. They are heavy, but I don't like reheating food in plastic.

When I was a kid, I used to eat tuna sandwiches for lunch every day for something like six straight years. I would bring it to school in a brown bag and leave it in my locker for hours. I never got sick doing that and still love tuna sandwiches.

I'm presently in a mode where I carry in a lot of leftovers. Sometimes I'm in salami-nuts-cheese-chocolate mode, or a Greek yogurt mode, but not the last year or two, for whatever reason.

I don't carry any outright liquid unless it's in a screwtop container. Anything with a liquid sauce gets tossed in with rice or pasta that will gum it up enough it doesn't leak.

Today I have penne and meatball marinara in a Sistema soup mug with a handle, that I got from Safeway. The lid has three latches and a steam vent. It's about 2/3L. It has three latches on the lid, and the lid has a gasket. I have a second one of these. These don't nest at all, which is kind of annoying, but they work great otherwise.
http://sistemaplastics.com/products/...edium-soup-mug

We also have some smaller 1/2L versions with no handle or vent that are presently holding formula powder in the diaper bags but will be returned to lunch service one day. The smaller ones also have a separator tray and a little spoon.
http://sistemaplastics.com/products/...reakfast-to-go

With plastic containers, oil on the surface of your food - like in Parmesan cheese - can exceed the melting point in the microwave and leave a permanent bathtub ring. Plastics also pick up stains from food, if that bothers you. We are presently annoyed that our baby bottles have picked up an orange tinge in the dishwasher for that reason. Neither of these things are really a problem unless you're picky.

We also have a set of the Rubbermaid plastic ones with the flexible lid. Not a giant fan, they don't seal too great, don't stack very small, and they crack up after a couple of years through the dishwasher. They're not a huge improvement over the Ziploc tubs. I don't think we will be buying more.

Tupperware wrapped in a plastic bag and stuffed wherever there's space (pannier, handlebar bag, backpack, depending on the bike)

I also have food in a filing cabinet that I restock from time to time, either bike trips at lunchtime, or carrying in from home.

I have a couple of flexible collapsible cooler bags that I use. I put them in either my front basket (mounted on a removable Steco rack) or rear crate (mounted on rear rack). I mostly eat at a café but occasionally will take something along to have a picnic instead.

What? Varies. Sometimes leftovers, sometimes sandwiches. For just me I'll usually take along either a piccolo or half bottle of wine or a full bottle for two of us.

I have a coworker who brings soup in jars, packed with other things in a padded cooler lunchbox.

My main concern is that at times it might have to survive a couple hours on my bike in hot weather. I wanted to see what others where doing. I thought perhaps they had some techniques that would work better than what I would know of. I also thought perhaps they might be packing foods I hadn't thought of that might be better choices for my situation.

small freezer packs. we used to have some neat ones that were cylindrical approx 2" diameter & could be mixed in with the foods in the lunch bag, instead of just one flat one at the bottom. but anything is better than nothing

I like salad, fruit, and yogurt for lunch. I picked up a reusable lunch bag at Walmart, and use tupperware to contain it all, even the yogurt. Popping a yogurt container in your pannier bag makes a bit of a mess.

Ah OK.

My feeling is that Americans (at least) are ridiculous nervous Nellies about food spoilage. I just don't worry about it, and have not had a problem yet. Maybe I've built up an iron stomach from decades of eating the oldest thing in the fridge before my wife got a chance to "waste it" by throwing it out - month old lunchmeat? Not a problem.

What I really don't get is when people bring in frozen dinners, put them in the freezer for the 3 hours until lunchtime, then take 8 minutes to microwave them. If they'd just leave them at their desk, they'd be mostly thawed by lunchtime and they'd nuke in 90 seconds. But people seem to think that if something thaws and isn't immediately cooked, it's gone bad.

I use a half liter (i think) kleen kanteen metal insulated mug to keep things either hot or cold like soup or pasta salad. i dont like carrying salad to work as it wilts and we have a pretty cheap salad bar in our downstairs cafeteria.

Otherwise, i tend to use things that are screw top and an insulated lunch bag in my backpack. i dont like carrying a backpack much but this one has one of those mesh springbacks that minimizes sweat.

3 drawers of my 5-drawer file cabinet constitute a pantry. Once a week maybe I haul some amount of food (canned or jarred usually) in my kittier. I can't remember the last time I've had less than two weeks' worth of lunches laying around. I usually try to skip breakfast.

Also my floor has two kitchenettes with a total of 5 full-size refrigerators (one dedicated to free soda) so there's plenty of fridge and freezer space for everybody. Microwaves, toasters, hot, cold, and frozen water, and even a good-size toaster oven.

I could go on and on. I've thought about starting a fancy food blog about eating at work, try to generate an audience and make some ad revenue.