My husband (to whom this post is dedicated) works for a large company on the outskirts of a big city. There are no shops nearby and the food in the canteen is dreadful. Though he may dutifully enjoy reading my idealistic posts about buying M&S salads and popping into local deli-come-cafes for soup and a quinoa and feta salad (or so he says for an easy life), they are useless to him. In these circumstances – certainly not his alone, but the fate of many office works – how does he devote himself to the pursuit of good health?
To my mind, he has two options. The first: he could become very well organised and stock his office with a supply of good food. For all you naysayers, this is not quite as unrealistic as it sounds, because it should only require an hour of time invested at the weekend – surely well worth feeling bright and sprightly for an entire week.
Allowing for a couple of business lunches out and croissant-fuelled breakfast meetings (a degree of realism is an important facet of any life change), the list below should be enough to cover most breakfasts, lunches and snacks for a week. Note, I assume access to a local supermarket at least once a week, and an office equipped with fridge, bowls, plates, forks and spoons …
The office block long list:
- Large bag of mixed nuts and/or seeds
- Bag of unsulphured dried apricots
- Tub of roasted sweet potatoes (made at home on a Sunday and then stored in the office fridge) – double the recipe you find here.
- Bag of spinach leaves (to serve as the base for lunchtime salads, or to extend puny canteen salads)
- Bunch of bananas
- 5 apples / pears
- Cucumber
- Tins of tuna (in springwater)
- 2 packets of smoked fish (trout / mackerel / salmon)
- Block of feta
- 2 avocados
- Unsweetened muesli
- Milk of your choice (whole, soya, almond etc.)
- Big tub of natural or Greek yoghurt
- Olive oil
- Cider or red wine vinegar
- Small loaf of sliced rye bread
- Tin of chickpeas
These ingredients should then be used throughout the week to provide a variety of meals – such as …
For breakfast: yoghurt, fruit, and nuts; or muesli, fruit and milk; for lunch: spinach, chickpeas, tuna (feta or smoked fish could easily be used instead), a few chunks of sweet potato, 1/2 avocado with a dash of vinegar and olive oil and a slice of rye bread on the side; or a very quick meal of rye bread, smoked fish and a big chunk of cucumber; snacks could include fruit, nuts and yoghurt.
But, I will admit that such organisation is only for the dedicated, and even they have weeks so busy this level of office-based food preparation is unrealistic. Now to the alternative: understanding how to make the best of what’s on offer (ideas below) and creating just enough time (no more than 15 minutes) to buy this very pared down list of essentials from any basic supermarket.
The office block bare essentials:
- Apples and bananas
- Nuts
- Rye bread
- Yoghurt
- (High quality) sliced cheese
- Bar of dark chocolate (70%+)
Simple ideas for making the best of it in the worst canteen:
1) Always choose the simplest and least processed option(s) – e.g. salad, a sandwich, soup, fish, boiled potatoes.
2) When choosing salad, be sure to ask for the dressing on the side – that way you can opt out of smothering edible fresh food with an inedible sugary, starchy, fatty slime, or at least moderate the amount that gets smeared on. When choosing a sandwich, go for the one with the least in – so bread and cheese, rather than bread and cheese and mayonnaise and chutney.
3) Steer clear of any dish served in a gloopy and oddly shiny-looking sauce. It’s bound to be salt, additive, and sugar laden.
4) Always include some protein for lunch – whether this be in the form of an omelette, scrambled eggs, a piece of fish, or some natural yoghurt for dessert.
5) Avoid cheesy pastas at all costs. Just looking at them is enough to make you feel sleepy.
6) Don’t succumb the temptation of afternoon cake (which, if wrapped in plastic and looks like it will survive a nuclear attack, cannot be anything but bad for you). Feast on nuts, fruit a square of chocolate instead.
7) And remember, two slices of rye bread and cheese is a much better breakfast than two cheap pain au chocolats from the canteen.
Last week I suggested that improving the way you eat is about making tiny changes day by day until you arrive at a place where you feel good and happy; drastic changes, by contrast, being costly and almost impossible to adhere to over more than a few weeks.
Of Slender Means 