Consumer Reports called on the Department of Agriculture today to remove Lunchables food kits from the National School Lunch Program. CR recently compared the nutritional profiles of two Lunchable kits served in schools and found they have even higher levels of sodium than the kits consumers can buy in the store. CR also tested 12 store-bought versions of Lunchables and similar kits and found several contained relatively high levels of lead and cadmium. All but one also tested positive for phthalates, chemicals found in plastic that have been linked to reproductive problems, diabetes, and certain cancers.
Get a block of cheese, crackers, and some kind of lunch meat. Only tool you need is a knife. Plus, you can add variations, like tuna or cream cheese or whatever you want. You pay more up front but get more food out of it and reduce plastic waste.
I appreciate the suggestion and I’m not trying to say it’s bad, just explain what I mean. Actually making my own cheese and crackers is already more steps and a dish into the mix. I don’t love lunchables because I think they’re fine dining I love them because some days I have the capacity to do exactly two things, and that might end up being “buy lunchable, open lunchable”. The nostalgic ‘life is simple’ feel they give me can sometimes boost my mood enough to get more done in a day which is unique to just a couple of foods for me. When I am normal sad I do things like you’re suggesting and I’ve lived with a chef for over a decade so I’ve got a lot of great value to effort knowledge there
Yeah, fair enough, I get the whole “I want to eat but I want to put exactly 0 effort into it” including to the point where I’ll put more effort walking back and forth between the fridge and freezer thinking of what could be easy to eat than it would take to cook up something simple. Though usually because there’s something else I’d rather be doing and I have enough self control at the moment to keep myself from getting into that until after I’ve eaten.
Though I’ve noticed that when I’m in one of those depressed moods where I feel like doing nothing at all, eating or otherwise, a vitamin b complex makes a night and day difference. Though please don’t take this as a “fixing depression is easy!” but as a “this helped me, maybe it could help you if you haven’t tried this angle of attack before”.
It sucks being in a mood like that, whether I have things to do that I instead just neglect or have some free time during which I’d like to do things I enjoy rather than just deciding everything sounds boring or not worth the effort, so finding something that has (so far) consistently helped with that has felt kinda like a super power.
Best wishes!