Cafeteria Vs. Bring Your Own Lunch

For the days that you forget to bring a lunch to work, you can visit the cafeteria if your company has one. As one of the people who can buy lunch at work, I'm here to show you what lunch is like. We used to have really good food, like omelets and quesadillas, but since we're part of a hospital system, they decided that we needed healthier food. Budget cuts had something to do with it too and now we have this new set up. There's a lot more pre-made sandwiches and the salad bar has grown by leaps and bounds. Soup is a big hit and during the winter months we can get chili.

If you are on a budget or trying to eat healthier, eating at the company cafeteria is probably not the best idea. Bringing your lunch to work can save a lot of money and you know what's in the food you make.

This is the main part of the cafeteria. We have a great salad bar with different things every day, a soup bar with 2 different soups, chips and other snacks, drinks, and a "special of the day" area.

The little bags of chips are $1.00 and every time I buy one, all I can think about is how I just need to buy a big bag at the store and then bring a small baggie full to work every day. I would save a lot of money that way but the convenience comes in handy.

Inside this refrigerator case, there's pre-made sandwiches that get soggy, desserts from the hospital where they still make good food, milk, cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, and sandwich wraps.

They also have random things in there on occasion so it's always a good idea to check.

One of the better things that they make are yogurt parfaits. They are pretty good. However, this is another one of those things that I think would be much cheaper to make at home and bring to work. They put a little fruit on the bottom of a cup and then add yogurt. You also get a little cup of granola with it. It's pretty simple to make but they charge $2.95. I'm sure you could make it for half the price at home.

It's even better if you have a refrigerator that you can use for the food you bring from home. If you have one available, you can bring anything to work and you never have to worry about what's for lunch that day in the cafeteria. Make your lunch and bring it in.

The salad bar is the best part of the whole cafeteria. There's about 20 different options to choose from and they switch it up day to day so that it's not always the same thing. You start with the lettuce and add topping after topping.

With all the variety, the salad bar is actually a good deal. I don't think you could buy all the different items for less than what you pay. It's really the only thing in the whole cafeteria that is worth the money.

If you don't have a cafeteria but you love eating salads for lunch, this great recipe book can give you plenty of ideas for different salads every day. That's important because otherwise salads are really easy to get tired of. Many years ago, I had to eat the same salad for 3 weeks in a row and to this day, I still can't eat that kind of salad.

The best thing about salads is that there's so much variety and you can give them any taste you want. Sweet, spicy, salty, plain or cheesy. It all depends on what you're in the mood for and what you love to eat.

My favorite salad is lettuce, sunflower seeds, onions, croutons, cucumbers and Italian dressing.

Take your lunch to work every day in this awesome Wild and Wonderful Lunch Set made by Tuppeware. You will be helping to save the environment by using the same containers every day instead of taking plastic bags and throwing them away.

This great set comes with a sandwich keeper, a cup with a spout and a snack cup. It's brown and bright pink. It will make you feel special every day that you take a lunch.

On this particular day, I had French Onion Soup and a Mug Root beer. Simple yet satisfying and a whole lot cheaper if you buy this at the store. The soda is a lot cheaper anyway. I tried making French Onion soup a couple of times and the first time it didn't turn out and the second time I spent a lot of money on the ingredients and only got about 2 or 3 bowls out of it. In the case of the soup, I would rather spend the money at the cafeteria than trying to make my own. If you can make it though, great!

Since we are a 24/7 facility, we have vending machines available for the times when the cafeteria isn't open. You can get a variety of items like candy bars, cookies, snack cakes, pretzels, chips, and trail mix. The two soda machines that we have are Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Lots of variety there too.

If you don't have a cafeteria at work, you might like to try these great Tupperware lunch sets. I love these sets. They usually come with a soup mug, a water bottle or cup, a snack cup, and sometimes a sandwich keeper or microwave bowl. They're really nice sets and each time a new catalog comes out they have a new design.