How to choose the best lunch box

When it’s time for back to school and you’re loading up on school supplies, it can be challenging to determine how to choose the best lunch box option for your child. Over the years, we’ve tried a variety, and still use many of them to fit specific situations.

When my kids hit middle school, it suddenly became “cool” to eat hot lunch in the cafeteria. That lasted a very short time because they either weren’t thrilled with the selection or they were still hungry after they’d eaten the entire meal, and they quickly switched back to bringing “cold” lunch in a lunch box.

In most of my themed school supply posts I include themed/character lunch boxes for younger kids, but today I’m going to share some options for older kids and/or adults.

The most important thing to take into consideration when choosing the best lunch box, is to determine what each person will be taking with them, and what will need to fit inside it.

My teenagers need extra space for after school snacks/drinks during sports practice, I prefer a smaller size, with space for a variety of foods (fruits, veggies, salad dressing, etc) with a water bottle.

In this picture, you’ll notice my middle son is using the Igloo 00055912 Playmate GRIPPER Maxcold 16 Black. This is our third one to purchase. Nick has used this to take his lunch to work every day for the last 6-7 years. It held up very well, with heavy use, and at the 6-year mark, it was just worn out. We purchased the first one at Target, and it was around $30 at the time. We felt it held up well and was a good value, so we bought another one, this time from Amazon, because the price was better at the time of purchase. In July, my middle son went to basketball camp and needed a lunch box to take with him. The smaller versions the boys have been using for middle school wasn’t sufficient because he was there for 10 hours a day, so he needed plenty of snacks, lunch, and bottles of water/Gatorade to keep cool for the entire day. This Igloo holds a lot, so we bought an additional one for him to use at camp, so Nick could still use his to take to work during that time. Now that camp is over, my oldest will be using this to take snacks, lunch, and bottles of water/Gatorade to school with him, because he’s in High School and will need the extra items for sports practice after school.

I mentioned a few months ago about using a Thermos Soup Mug, and I still recommend this (it’ll fit in many larger lunch boxes too, if needed). Since the schools in our town do not provide a microwave for the kids to use to heat up food, the Thermos is a perfect option for days when they want to take soup, stews, or chili to school for lunch!

For normal size quantities of food, I really like using the Rubbermaid LunchBlox Lunch Bag. I’ve been using the LunchBlox food containers for a while, because they can snap to each other AND to the blue ice packs, making it very easy to send a variety of foods in separate containers, and my kids don’t lose them (or accidentally throw them away…). This works so well for us, and I have several of the LunchBlox containers that I also send in the larger bags 🙂

When packing lunch for the entire family, I prefer the TOURIT Sport Tote. This works well for us when we go hiking, mountain bike riding, to the beach, to amusement parks, or to have a picnic at a local park. It fits plenty of food for the 5 of us, and any friends the kids might have invited to join us. I can keep water bottles cold, sandwiches for everyone, as well as fruits and vegetables that I prepare in advance and store in reusable containers. It’s light enough that one of the kids can carry it if needed, though we usually leave it in the car because we eat there, and the food stays cold while we’re out.

I’d love for you to share what YOUR favorite Lunch Box is and why it works so well for your family, or feel free to share what you’re looking for in the perfect lunch box if you’re still searching for one, and hopefully one of us can help you find it! The most important thing to keep in mind is that no one lunch box will work for everyone, so when thinking about how to choose the best lunch box for your needs, you’ll first need to determine exactly what your needs are 🙂 Happy shopping!

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