Lunch ideas for hospital employees?

Have you heard of mason jar meal prep? Mason jar salads are everywhere. You could take bottle water and pour just a little out then freeze. Place one or two bottles in a lunch bag with mason jar salads and snacks. When the water thaws you have water to drink.

Check out The Domestic Geek she does tons of meal prep with mason jars. She recently did soup jars that you just add hot water too and you have a meal. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iHZ2G8TwTwY

Some mason jar meals I have tried:
soupspiceeverythingnice.blogspot.com/2015/09/recycle-tip-fruit-cups-mason-jars.html

I make a huge pot of brown rice and black beans with chopped vegggies on Sundays and divide them up for my husband and I's lunches during the week. He likes to have a meat added to his which would require a fridge but I just eat mine with sliced avocado for a cheap and filling lunch that's protein packed.

I am a night shift nurse and do 12 hour shifts, too. I am fortunate to have a fridge and microwave available to me because I refuse to eat anything from the cafeteria. They do have a few to go items like hummus and pretzels or granola bars and yogurt but nothing prepared there I would touch, yuck! I think a good lunch box with a couple of ice packs should get you pretty deep into your shift? Enough that you could do fruit and yogurt. Veggies with hummus or yogurt based dips. Even sandwiches. I love taking nuts for snacks. Every night I have some almonds and an apple around 10pm and that gets me thru until my lunch around 1am-2am. Definitely some high quality granola bars. You could pack some protein powder in a shake bottle and grab a skim milk from the cafeteria and shake that up with some PB2 powder? Cheese sticks? With ice packs just plan to eat your "must be cold" stuff first and the stuff that doesn't matter later? (cheese sticks early and protein shake later?)

It can be done but planning for 12 hours of meals and snacks definitely requires some work!