I love Cheryl’s theme suggestion of WORK DAY EATING this month. The majority of lunches are eaten at work and it’s hard to eat well at work if you’re not prepared.

When I first started working full time (way back in my early twenties), I ate out every day. I didn’t make the time to prepare lunch in the mornings and I liked having a bit of “me time” in the middle of the day while I checked out local cafes. Eating out for lunch cost me $50 to $70 per week but I didn’t mind because I had gone from a student budget to a full time salary. I was splurging.

Then I got smart. Eating out every day is a big waste of money. Nowdays, I’m all about leftovers, whether it’s straight up leftovers or rehashing it slightly for lunch – such as a chicken salad using leftover chicken from the previous night’s roast dinner plus some chopped salad ingredients. You hardly notice a cost difference if you cook an extra portion or two at dinner time and there’s no extra time commitment either.

It’s important that work day eating are easily transportable, easy to assemble and satisfying. I was never good at eating breakfast in the mornings which meant I often ate my pre-packed lunch before noon and would be hungry again mid-afternoon and might pop out in search of a snack. I started to keep a box of cereal at work too. Now that I work from home, I have more flexibility when it comes to lunch but I’m definitely dining in for lunch more than I used to.

I hope this edition of Our Growing Edge round up will be inspiration better work day eating.

Some ideas you could try this month:

• Try a local lunch spot near your work
• Create some healthy lunch options for the week
• Set up a good snack drawer at work
• Make lunch using dinner leftovers as a starting point
• Assemble a meal in a jar
• Build an epic sandwich that will make your co-workers jealous

To submit a post, click on the submission button below:

More info on the event can be found here.

Last month’s event

Sophie at Cooking Trips was the host for July’s edition of Our Growing Edge. The theme was TRAVEL and you can see her round up here.

Below is a preview of just some of the travel-themed submissions (thanks Sophie).