When you commute how do you carry your lunch? Or do you?

When I start commuting both ways to & from work, 28 mile round trip I will need a way to keep my lunch cold. At work we have refrigerators & microwaves to use. It can & does get warm & humid even in the morning in my area in the spring & summer. I will probably not want to take sandwhiches made with cheese or mayo or meat for fear that it will get too warm & cause me to become sick. I can find a good selection of healthy frozen microwave meals to eat. Because they are pre-cooked would they be a good choice? The only way I have to carry my lunch is in my saddle bags.

The cleaning crew cleans out the refrigerator/freezers once a week & throws away what ever is in them. And people have been known to steal another person's frozen meal. Otherwise I would consider stocking up with a weeks supply of lunches.

How do you do it? What do you suggest?

I keep it in my handlebar bag with my cable lock.

When it's warm out, put your food in the freezer the night before, and it won't thaw by the time you get to work. Or use one of those little freezer packs in your lunch bag.

Peanut butter sandwiches and fresh produce used to be my specialty. I'd just stick it in my bag. Plus I could make it the night before and not worry about it.

I used to have an insulated lunch bag that came with a re-usable, sealed packet of freezy stuff. That kept things cool enough. That bag has since been worn out and now I have a new commute. I'm looking for a replacement but have yet to find one of the right dimensions. Fortunately there are lots of good places to eat in Williamsburg!

I use a thermal lunch box and small ice packs.

If I travel at 15-22 C and keep my lunch at my desk, using one ice pack is just ok to keep my lunch relatively cool until lunchtime. Two ice packs is safe enough for mayonnaise and other sensitive items, even when it's warm outside.

Forgot to mention I love pb&j's. They are mothers milk to me. But they would get kind of boring eating them everyday, no mattes how many flavors of jam or jelly I can find. The great thing about them is they really do not require much if any refrigeration at all.

An insulated lunch box and ice packs sounds like a good idea -- or you could go all the way and buy dry ice. That way you get a cool mad-scientist effect when you open your lunch at work.

+1
Thats what I do. Two ice packs are good, and I always eat stuff like mayo, and tuna, and I've never had a problem, even on the hottest summer days.

I have a soft sided lunch-size cooler in my backpack. I always pack a warm-up-able entree that is frozen and a sandwich. I work 12 hours shifts so I usually eat 2 meals. The frozen entree keeps everything else in the cooler reasonably cold.

It's not regularly as hot where I am as in Iowa, but my commute is a little longer than yours and it can be quite warm during a heat wave. I carry my lunch almost every day.

I have an insulated lunch box I throw in a pannier. Keeping everything in the fridge before transporting it makes a difference as does blue ice. If you add an apple to your lunch that has been stored in the fridge, it will help your lunch cold.

If you have a fridge at work, you can put stuff there when you arrive. The lunch I eat most often is a turkey sandwich with cheese smothered in mayo. I don't bother to refrigerate my lunch at all or add blue ice and it is always warm when I eat it. As I say this, I think my wife might throw blue ice in my box sometimes when it is especially hot (which would probably be just normal weather for you).

A couple observations. Cheese will not spoil that fast. You can leave it out just fine when it's hot and eat it. I have literally left cheese out for days with no problems. If you don't eat real mayo, that probably won't spoil either since it is likely to be made of oil. Even if you do eat real mayo, stuff just doesn't go bad nearly as fast as people say. I've let stuff sit out all day, throw it in the fridge, and eat it the next day. It never causes problems.

Don't mess with the microwave stuff. For a 28 mile commute, you need to eat something with more substance. Besides, packing your own lunch is much cheaper and tastes better.

Square tupperwares, which fit perfectly snug inside my rack trunk... Can separate contents with tin foil, or add inside smaller tupperwares for sauces and such. My commute's only nine miles, and throw in fridge when I get to work.

I have a light, insulated lunch bag. My ride is usually 15 mi RT, but on many mondays I go to a secondary location before riding to my primary office. My lunch goes "unrefrigerated" from 8 AM to 11:30 AM and I'm usually eating leftovers or sandwiches and almost always yogurt. No problems with food poisoning or food getting funky.

I don't, I just steal my coworkers.

I put salads in a plastic bag, with the hommade dressing in a separate jar. Soup and pasta go in tupperwares. Everything is put in a plastic shopping bag and tied, just in cas it leaks. The whole thing rides nicely in my backpack, along with my work clothes.

I carry a weeks worth in at a time in my panniers, or on the trailer if it's too much to fit. For cold stuff I could carry an ice-chest on the trailer, but I normally don't. My work commute is not that long.

A long time ago I worked at a place that had a lunch thief. Until someone placed a big, human feces burrito in the refrigerator. No doubt who the thief was after that. He was the guy out back washing his mouth out with a hose for an hour.

I don't bring my lunch but I sometimes bring home frozen things from the store. I use a blue-ice block and that keeps things cold enough. You might also store things at work in the office fridge like mayo or whatever.

I did similar to a lunch thief by making a sandwich out of canned dog food, then when I noticed it gone, putting a note on the 'fridge with a photo of where the "meat" came from, and a warning that it will get worse from there.

Never had an issue after that, but I ended up finding a better place to work in a couple months after that, and started just eating out all the time.

Which reminds me. I think I'm out of pickles at work.

Reminds me of a trick one of my coworkers played on a guy that was always trying to snarf stuff. Basically, he just soaked some of those cellulose kitchen sponges in chocolate syrup, refrigerated them, and cut them into squares. Instant brownies. I wasn't there when the dude ate them, but I hear he never figured out the "recipe" though there were reports he found them a bit chewy.

Do you mean a pre-packaged frozen product like Lean Cuisine or some other sort of TV dinners? Or do you mean a frozen package of frozen home leftovers? Stealing a grocery store product would be almost understandable because it's an anonymous commodity. The thief would be stealing a generic thing, not something attached to a person.

When I carried lunches to the office, I would take five Tupperware containers of last week's leftovers, filled and frozen as we cleaned the dinner table each night. Stack them in the fridge and nuke one for lunch each day. Take a new batch of lunches on Sunday afternoon when I drive the car with my week's worth of office clothes. That way I never rode in the morning with office clothes getting crumpled, or food getting rancid, in my pannier. I washed the container and took it home each afternoon, along with that day's used shirt, socks, and BVDs.

At my current $DAYJOB, I don't take leftovers to the office any more. The company cafeterias are just fine

Insulated container in my backpack.

You could bring small containers (a week's worth) of mayo to work on Mondays. If thievery makes that a problem, see if you can buy those tiny packets you get at fast food places and ball parks. Those don't require refridgeration.

Is there any place you could stash a small dorm-style fridge?

Actually both. After the first time I started putting my name on what I take for lunch but it still happens from time to time. I have yet to see anyone eat the same brand or variety I do, otherwise I could see it being a case of mistaken identity. It is ridiculous to steal something home made from someone else. You don't know how good or fresh it is.

I eat the same lunch every day: bagel w/ cream cheese, banana (or alternate fruit), and some kind of fruit juice (I reuse an old Minute Maid bottle) packaged up in the ubiquitous brown bag. I know it's boring, but I don't like carrying too much with me to work (for instance I leave my pants and jacket at work and only take underwear and a shirt with me) so a simple lunch is best.