Keeping Lunch (and sometimes dinner) Cold
Twibbly
Posts: 1,065 Member
My freezer packs seem to be woefully inadequate for their duties when combined with my little soft-sided lunch bag. I have a PlanetBox, but even it would be warm by dinner time.
What do you use to keep your food cold when you're not near a fridge?
What do you use to keep your food cold when you're not near a fridge?
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I used to put my lunch bag in an ice chest that would keep the food cold even if I left it all morning in the car.0
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My freezer packs seem to be woefully inadequate for their duties when combined with my little soft-sided lunch bag. I have a PlanetBox, but even it would be warm by dinner time.
What do you use to keep your food cold when you're not near a fridge?
LOL! A few weeks ago, I was making some fat bombs. I carefully filled my new silicone mold up with the mixture. I went to put it in the freezer, then BAM!
It just came to me that I just put $100 worth of food in both my freezer and fridge. No room to put my fat bombs.
Not to worry, I took them on my porch outside, and put on my BBQ shelf. It was about 10 degrees that night. It had snowed and there was no evidence that critters would get it (no tracks in the snow).
Then when I left to go to work, I pulled them back in and de-molded them into a container.
I hope this helps (probably not),
Dan the Man from Frigid Michigan
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Dan, Friday is supposed to be below freezing the entire day...but then it's back up to the 50s and 60s.
Texas: Definitely not as cold as Michigan0 -
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Wide mouth, glass insulated thermos - the kind designed for soup instead of drinks. For cold, pre-chill it with ice water for 5-10 minutes, then dump it, dry it, and add your cold food. It works the opposite for hot, boiling water for 5-10, then dump and dry. Sometimes the Container Store website has them on sale, and I've stocked up 6 of them now so everyone can use them and, if necessary, have one hot and one cold in their lunch.0
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I had to make a stockpile of ice packs for icing my foot after surgery, and found that they work really great as lunch box coolers as well:
Ziploc bags (quart and gallon)
Rubbing Alcohol
Water
Basic recipe is 3 parts water to 1 part rubbing alcohol (more alcohol for squishier pack). 2 1/2 cups water to 1/2 cup alcohol makes a pretty decent sized pack. Place in quart sized bag and press most of the air out. Place inside a gallon sized bag, again pressing air out. Freeze.
One or two of these can be used in a softsided lunchbox sort of "wrapped" around the food inside.
Another idea is to take water bottles that are around 2/3 to 3/4 full and freeze them. Use these to keep food cool until time to eat, then drink the water from the melted ice along w/ your meal!0 -
Why not just buy a small drink cooler? You know, the hard plastic thick-walled ones like Igloo and other companies make? I've packed my husband's lunch in one of those before, and it was still cool when he came home. My soft-side cooler isn't good at keeping things cool either, but thankfully we have a refrigerator for staff use at the office--one that's clean and where nobody steals your food.
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I just got a lunch bag that I absolutely adore, big enough for a good size lunch and dinner, plus a bottle of water and a couple snacks. It's a spicy relish one by built, got it on amazon for about 20 bucks. It's neoprene, and keeps food cold for around 8 hours with one of those flat plastic icepacks (I think they might be meant to go in a specific salad container, not sure). I'm a college student and use it daily, so far so good. Also kept a thermos of coffee quite hot for me, better than thermos on its own.
I'll second the rubbing alcohol and water packs too, they're great and pretty cheap.0 -
I'll try out the alcohol and water ice packs.
I haven't considered a hard ice chest because I don't have a luggage rack on the motorcycle I ride when it's warm out. I'll look into the neoprene.0
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