HOW TO HAVE THE PERFECT LUNCH BREAK

Lunch break: everyone is rushing to fast food stalls and supermarkets. The food eaten while stressed at the PC is full of fat, sugar and packaging waste. Utopia shows how things can be done differently.

We spend a third of our lives at work, and every third meal is eaten there: namely lunch. But this is rarely good, healthy and sustainable. In a nutrition study conducted by the Techniker health insurance company, one in three men and one in four women complained about not being able to eat properly at work.

The constraints of the lunch break tempt us to be unreasonable: we have little time and take what is easy and close at hand. And that’s exactly what leads us to the usual nonsense: packaged snacks from the supermarket, junk food such as hamburgers, currywurst, kebabs and pizza. So better take your time, have a healthy lunch and try out the new 20Bet login.

OUR TIPS

Here are tips on how you can make your lunch break better overall.

1. to-go is a no-go during the lunch break

Fruit to go: not ideal for the lunch break. If you want to have a more sustainable lunch break, avoid the packaged snack traps: These are convenience foods from the supermarket that come in aluminum trays and plastic wrap. Fruit to go in plastic cups and take-away salads in plastic bowls are also negative examples. Tinned fruit, bagged salads and ageing chilled sushi are also not advisable from a health perspective because microorganisms like to settle on them – while the vitamins have often already taken flight.

So don’t just pay attention to the snack itself, but also to the packaging: less is more, a sandwich in paper or in a lunch bag is usually more sustainable than fruit in a plastic cup. Better than a coffee-to-go: simply take a seat in a café – and enjoy your break in peace.

2. use a sustainable location

Lunch in a café or a simple restaurant? Why not, if time permits – going there with colleagues is always good for communication.

3. quick lunch – prepare at home in peace

Why are we always rushing somewhere at lunchtime to grab an unhealthy snack in a hurry? Often it’s because we haven’t prepared for this completely unexpected and rare event called “lunch break”. It would only take a little effort to prepare a snack for the next day at dinner.

A sandwich with wholemeal bread still tastes good the next day. Vegetables or leftovers from dinner in a jar (see below) also last a long time and look great too. You don’t have to do all this every day: But eating leftovers from the weekend on Mondays, for example, saves money and avoids food waste.

Lentil soup, for example, is perfect. It’s low in calories but still keeps you full for a long time.

Also good: a delicious spread made from pulses. For example, make your own hummus:

• 200 grams of cooked chickpeas (from about 100 grams of dried ones)
• juice of half a lemon
• one pressed clove of garlic
• 60 ml olive oil (more if required)
• some ground sesame seeds or a tablespoon of tahini paste.
• Simply puree everything together and season with salt and black pepper. Keep refrigerated for a week’s worth of spread.

4. don’t just eat fast carbohydrates

There’s nothing wrong with a bread roll or a piece of Danish pastry. The only problem is that they don’t satisfy you in the long term: once you’ve used up all your carbohydrates, you’ll be hungry again. And because you then no longer have a lunch break, the next snack is the fattening sugar and palm fat bar from the plastic packet.

So it’s better to plan a few pieces of fruit or vegetables for every lunch break. Or also:

Although potatoes are also mainly a source of carbohydrates, they are much more useful than chocolate bars. The starch is more complex than sugar and lasts longer. Potatoes are great for pre-cooking and many varieties can easily be eaten cold with the skin on.

Rice or couscous can be mixed very well with roasted vegetables, together they taste good even when cold and keep you full longer than currywurst and chips. However, it is not low in calories.

Pulses contain lots of vitamins as well as protein and fiber. They keep you going and provide plenty of nutrients. Beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas are ideal.

Quark is one of the underestimated lunch menus. Together with fruit, vegetables or even cold potatoes, quark is a guaranteed filling meal.

Wholemeal bread instead of bread rolls, wraps or pizza also keeps you full for longer.