I love bento! While I usually have meals at home, I do try to use some of the principles in my lunch and dinner prep. Small plate, lots of colors, small portions and put together in a very pretty way make the foodie in me very happy and the extra time in preparing it makes me really consider what I am eating.

I must admit, I usually don't do traditional bento when I pack my lunch, since I rarely if ever eat rice. Mine tend to run much higher in veggies and lean protein.

Anyone else do bento or "artistic" meals?

I've really been looking to, so I'm just posting to bookmark really, but I'd love to hear low calorie ideas. I've researched it quite a bit but I haven't found any low-cal ones yet.

http://latinconfusion.blogspot.com/

That is the only low-cal one I have seen.

Maybe I should start photographing ones I make.

veganlunchbox.blogspot.com

Ooh those look really good. Yeah you totally should, I would love to see them, actually!

I love the vegan lunchbox!

I've been trying low cal. bentos too! I really like justbento dot com for recipes but will add latinconfusion to my list. Here's a pic of my last one:

When my post count gets higher, I'll add a couple of pictures of my favorite bentos so far.

I only do it during the week for lunch. Friday's was: vegetarian chili w/ light sour cream, low-fat mini pumpkin cornbread muffins, broccoli and cauliflower roasted w/ garlic and chili peppers, and grapes. Approx. 450 cal.

I'm planning this week's bentos at the moment.

I've just recently found the world of Bento! I've been sending my toddler with Bento Boxes to her daycare, I to recreate some of her favorite characters.

^
Do you have pics or recipes? I'd love to hear at least a general outline of what you make for her if you don't mind.

There's supposed to be a traditional ratio of protein-carbs-veggies, and someone had a diet bento page that tweaked that ratio to make it more diet-friendly. I'll see if I can find that. Basically what I do is reduce amount of the starch (rice, bread, whatever) in favor of fruit, which is not traditional, but is lower calorie. And makes up for not having a "dessert" treat.

For those who haven't looked at the Just Bento blog, it has some pages on proportions and good practices for diet bentos. These pages were really helpful for me: here:http://calorielab.com/news/2008/01/23/building-a-diet-bento-box/
http://justbento.com/how-bento-lunch...-30-lbs-so-far

I have some pictures too, I didn't know you could post them. I tend not to do very cute time-intensive things (faces, cutting out shapes etc), but do focus on getting lots of colors in and generally making it look nice. Also they have to be finger foods for me, because I don't have a proper lunch hour, and don't have time to get out the spoon or fork. So I put things in wraps, and cut sandwiches into small pieces. You can get a lot of ideas from appetizer recipes, because they're designed to produce bite size things. Of course skipping or modifying the ones that are high calorie! I especially like using deli-type breads: black German ryes are my favorite, with cream cheese and smoked salmon. And making things (meatloaf, egg recipes) in muffin tins and keeping them in the freezer to heat up and drop in the box in the morning.

OK, let's see if this picture thing works. Here are some typical lunch bentos for me; I tend to repeat a lot. All of these bentos are 400-500 calories (I space my calories evenly over my 3 main meals). There are a lot of grapes; I like grapes. Also carrots every day pretty much, and then whatever other fruit I have around; pear, apple, kiwi.

The other possibly-identifiable things are: snow peas, home-made bagel (tiny size for fewer calories), mini quiche with spinach, grilled beets, cole slaw made with yogurt dressing; black German rye bread, smoked salmon. In the last picture the thing on the right is a pita with grilled chicken and avocado, wrapped in a sheet of baking paper and tied (rolled-up pitas aren't structurally-sound enough to cut into pieces, and it had to fit into my insulated bag). I don't have access to a refrigerator, so I have an ice pack inside the insulated bag, sometimes a tiny bottle of frozen milk for my coffee.

OK, last one, I promise. (Only five pictures allowed per post). The stuff in the wraps is home made Greek faba or fava dip, like hummus but made with yellow peas, garlic and onion, and no tahini; it's very low calorie, about 40cal for 2 tablespoons if you don't use much oil.

Those look really good!

I love this idea!! Those bento boxes look wonderful, bronzeager. This is so much better than sticking things in plastic bags.

I've really been wanting to make low calorie, brown rice sushi rolls and bento boxes would be perfect for that.

Those who make bento do you have any advice on how to get started or websites that are good resources?

Is there anything I should look for in a bento box or special equipment you find helpful?

How far ahead do you make your bento boxes?

Thanks in advance!

I usually make it that morning, but I have pre-prepared stuff that makes it quicker to assemble: grilled chicken, pre-washed fruit, pre-cut vegetables. If I know I will be short of time the next morning I put the fruit and vegetables in the box the night before. If you close the box and put it in the fridge, even cut apples don't turn brown. Usually it doesn't take me more than 10 minutes, I do it while I'm waiting for the coffee to boil and my oatmeal to warm up in the microwave. That's why I tend to do simple things like wraps and not cooked food, although I will use cooked leftovers sometimes.

Mini-quiches I can cook pretty quickly in my countertop oven, so sometimes they are fresh. The sushi is also made fresh in the morning, but with re-heated, pre-cooked rice frozen in portioned ziploc bags -- I learned that from the lunchinabox web site. (Bag the rice while it is still hot from the pot and it won't dry out.) Biggie at lunchinabox has lots of good tips for efficiency. You also have to keep in mind that if you cook something that morning, it has to cool off completely before you put it in the closed box, or it will steam up and get everything damp and mushy.

I have three or four different boxes that I use, between 500ml and 700ml size. The size is useful to keep in mind for portion control -- it may look really small but you can pack a lot in there. If you want to put it in the dishwasher keep in mind that many of the real Japanese bento boxes need to be handwashed or they can warp.

I like my two metal boxes, and if there is anything that might be leaky, I use my lock 'n' lock plastic boxes. They all have extra locking mechanisms because I had the tops fall off a couple of times on regular plastic boxes. I just got them from dollar and import stores around here. (There are a lot of Indian/Asian import markets in our town.) I did buy some silicone divider cups but I hardly ever use them, I just jam everything in together. Well, for freezing things in portions they are handy. If I want to divide or separate something like a hardboiled egg, I use a lettuce leaf. I also have some tiny plastic bottles for soy sauce, olive oil, etc. that I got in the Daiso Japanese import store, and some small plastic screwtop jars for salad dressing. If I start bringing yogurt I will put it in one of those. And I steal ketchup and salt and pepper packets from fast-food joints.