Lunch to take to work.

Divia

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Hello!

I'm looking for ideas of very low carb foods I can take with me to have at work, or as a snack when hiking.

I take a few nuts and 85% chocolate, but these are high carbs and I'll soon get tired of them anyway.

I don't have a fridge, nor microwave available. I can cook easy stuff.

Can, for instance, hard boiled eggs survive a day off the fridge? Keto bread?

Ideas? What do you take to eat out?

Thank you for your help!
 

xfieldok

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Cheese, a few walnuts, olives. Rolittos? Definitely eggs.
 
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Goonergal

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If you buy one of those small insulated bags and a freezer block, you can keep pretty much anything cool enough until lunchtime. Typically I’d have something like smoked salmon and cream cheese, cold meats, cheese, eggs. Canned fish is also good on the run.
 
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Brunneria

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The simplest suggestion I can make is to encourage you to eat more at meals, so that you don’t actually need to snack.
But that is really simplistic, and obviously won't fit every situation.

When I was stuck in an office environment and starting doing very low carb/keto, I used to do the following:

B: either eggs, or sausages, or ham and cheese, or coffee with cream, or nothing
S: a couple of squares of 70% choc
L: hummus (with a spoon), or pate (with a spoon), or crustless quiche, or a blob of mozzarella with a beef tomato, or leftovers from the night before, or cold meat, or a chunk of brie
My low point was always late in the work day, before I walked the mile home. So that was when I ate a peanut 9bar, or a large spoon of peanut butter (from a jar in my desk drawer). It was also the point that my willpower was weakest, and if I strayed, that was when it happened, so it paid to have ‘emergency’ options around. Baby Bel, nuts, low carb fat bombs, a hot drink with cream in it.
D: was a standard keto meat n veg meal

as time passed, I found I was snacking less and less, while simultaneously forgetting to bother with breakfast.
 
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TriciaWs

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Hardboiled eggs survive well, just take off the shell when you are ready to eat them. (Think of the food the children in early.mid 1900s took on picnics!)
I got some individual tubs of real cream for coffees when out.
I make low carb fat ball for when I'll be travelling for hours in the summer - the basic ones are just peanut or any nut butter, even tahini as a change, mixed with a little coconut flour to bind it and some flavouring. I make orange ones with zest and a little juice, or cocoa and vanilla,
If it is just out of a fridge for 2-3 hours and not too hot out then an omelette or cheesy egg 'muffins'.
If I'm somewhere the smell won't be an issue then a small tin of tuna plus some lettuce leaves.
 
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Divia

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Thank you so much for the suggestions!

I'm happy to know I can take boiled eggs even without a fridge to keep them!

Canned fish is a good idea, too!

I'll look for a bag and ice pack to broaden my options in the future!

Peanut butter can be kept outside the fridge once open? I didn't know. Anyway, I've tried peanut butter and didn't like. Perhaps with time I'll get used to it.

I also didn't know it was ok to keep cheese unrefrigerated! Good to know. Cheese is a perfect option for me, easy, no prep and I love it!

Pork scratching... not available here. It's the skin, isn't it? I've had it abroad and loved it, but I can't find it here.

Thank you very much!
 

Brunneria

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keeping cheese out of the fridge is a debatable thing.

I would NEVER buy cheese, dump it on the counter unrefrigerated and then come back days later to eat.
However, some cheese is nicer when left out to reach room temperature before eating, and I will happily put Baby Bels (sealed in their own little wax jacket) into my bag in the morning, and then eat them during my work day. Unless it was a hot day.

As for not liking peanut butter... well, there is cashew nut butter, almond nut butter, sunflower seed butter, pumpkin kernel butter, tahini (sesame seed paste), and a few others, too.
 

Divia

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Yeah, I didn't mean leaving it permanently on the counter. I've meant it in the context of taking cheese to eat it at lunch, at work, when I have nothing there to keep it refrigerated.

As for the other butters, I've never tried them. I should perhaps give them a go. I'll look into making my own. But if I make cashew butter, for instance, it'd be high carb, no?
 

Brunneria

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Cashew butter has around 17 g of carbs per 100g
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/268420553
I wouldn't call that high carb, especially if you are only eating a teasp or two.

Personally, I have never found cashews to raise my blood glucose in the slightest, but then I prefer to go by my meter, rather than be controlled by a number on a label that doesn't seem relevant to the way my body reacts.
 

Ian DP

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The simplest suggestion I can make is to encourage you to eat more at meals, so that you don’t actually need to snack..

This is so true, in my experience. I never now have or need anything to eat between 7am and 7pm. Breakfast always consists of two eggs, often with a couple of rashers of bacon, mushrooms and a little tomato, together with a bullet proof coffee.... even on days I play 3 hours of tennis. Before I went low carb high fat (over 6 years ago), I always had lunch and a snack mid way between.
 

Robbity

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Small snack packs of olives will keep OK out of a fridge until they're opened.

And I've regularly kept various nut butters out of a fridge environment without ever having any issue with doing so. Like @Brunneria I don't have a problem with cashews and we have an old thread somewhere about them and the resistant starch which they apparently contain.

I've also occasionally kept low carb/keto muffins/bread (mug variety or otherwise) just in a closed container for a few days, though I generally keep a little sachet of dessicant/food grade silica gel in with them to avoid them getting a bit "sweaty"

And finally, I'd agree, the longer I've eaten low carb, the less I've needed or wanted to snack, or even keep to three meals a day. The fatty part of LCHF supplies you with sustainable energy for much longer than quick fix short term carby fuel.