This question comes from the Frugal Upstate Facebook page (go on by and join if you haven’t yet!). Most weekdays over there I post the “Lunchbox Report”–a picture and description of what I’ve packed in the kids lunch that day. Last week Kristen wrote:
I notice you pack leftovers or soup for your kids a lot. I have a question, what brand of thermos do you use? I bought one for my daughter’s lunches, and it doesn’t keep anything hot..does yours work well?
Kristen,
When I first started packing lunch for Princess 6 years ago (wow, has it really been 6 years since she started kindergarten!) I bought a wide mouth plastic thermos. Although I knew that a glass lined thermos (like the big old fashioned Stanley thermos I bought my husband for deer hunting) was the best for insulating, I figured glass and kids didn’t mix. And anyway-those things are pretty darn expensive.
Photo by Noah Bolton
So instead I bought a plastic wide mouth “lunch” thermos. It was terrible.
So after a while (and poor Princess eating lukewarm lunches) I went ahead and purchased a . At around $12 it was a bit more expensive than the plastic ones, but I’ve been using it for 5 years now and it’s still going strong.
One of our thermos
Now if you really want to keep stuff warm in a thermos there are a few tips for you to use:
1. Preheat the thermos.
To preheat the thermos you fill it with boiling hot water, put the lid on, and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. You can boil the water in a kettle, microwave a measuring glass full of water & pour it in, or even in a pinch just use the hottest water from your tap. When your thermos is done preheating, pour the water out and them immediately place your food inside.
If you don’t preheat, as soon as you put your food in the thermos there will be a heat difference between the food and the interior wall–since heat will always move from higher temperatures to lower, the heat will move from your hot food into the colder wall of the thermos. So just by placing heated food inside it will actually get colder. When you have preheated the thermos then the interior walls should be much closer to the temperature of the foods. Of course this assumes #2. . .
2. Heat up your food.
When I heat food to pack in the kids lunch I try to get it as hot as possible-much hotter than I would normally serve their food to them. That way even with heat loss it still stays warm.
3. Pack it in an insulated bag.
Let’s make the poor thermos’s job as easy as possible here folks-pack it into an insulated lunchbox/bag to give it the best shot at staying hot.
4. Don’t use an ice pack.
Yeah, I know. . . it sounds like a “duh” thing. But there are some items that you just can’t send in a school lunchbox and have remain foodsafe without using an icepack-like yogurt for example. Although I guess you could put a hot thermos in there and then pack next to it an icepack and a yogurt, well, it just seems like you are defeating the purpose. When I pack a thermos I usually try not to include anything in the lunch that has to be chilled.
Now the kids swear that their lunches are still warm when they eat them, but I haven’t actually checked it out myself. I guess I should some time eh?
If you want more ideas about packing lunches here are a few of my other posts on the subject:
How to Save Money Packing Lunches ~ Carrot Sticks vs Baby Carrots ~ Four Reasons to Pack Your Lunch ~ Keeping Stuff Hot for Lunch ~ Lunchbox Planning for School ~ A Note on Portion Sizes ~ How to Make Lunch Sandwiches Fun
And remember, if you have a Reader’s Question you can either use my contact form or ask it on the Frugal Upstate Facebook page
I believe that investing in some “pricey” thermos or lunch boxes will actually save us some money in the future because we do not need to buy a new one after every couple of months.
Cherleen-you are so right. I paid for both my kids to have the LLBean lunchboxes because I knew the insulation would be really good-the walls are much thicker than most you buy in a big box store. I bought Princess hers for KINDERGARTEN and we retired it this year (she’s in 5th grade) simply because it’s pink and has a butterfly on it-at 10 that was too “baby” and I figured that at a cost of $20 the thing had only cost me $5 a year 😉 Plus it still works so I have it for packing along lunches for myself if I need to, bringing dips and such to a party or even bringing drinks and snacks in the car during the summer.
I do pack our thermos with an ice pack and cold foods – but I’ve learned you can insulate even an insulated thermos. Right now, I wrap the thermos in either a thick hand towel or bubble wrap. I have the same stainless thermos you show here, but you can use the same method to increase efficiency in the less effective plastic thermoses.
I plan to create a foam “thermos cozy” by cutting and splitting foam can-cozies – they are actually extremely effective insulators (styrofoam is another, if you can stand the mess of cutting it to fit – most of the plastic thermoses are lined with styrofoam, just not enough of it.) We did discover that the divided insulated lunch containers don’t really provide an effective barrier between the two temperatures.
My son reports getting his food appropriately warmed and cooled at lunchtime.
Great tips! I never thought of bubble wrap-I always save the stuff in the basement you know!
That was my wife on facebook who asked that question, great information. Never knew about pre heating the thermos, she actually bought that same one online from Wal Mart for the kiddo’s and is loving it! Thank you for all the great articles and information, and we all look forward to the Will Wonka candy!!
Glad that the info is helpful Chad! Yes-the preheating thing makes a BIG difference. Frequently I’ll just toss a measuring cup full of water in the microwave for 3 min then pour that in. . . sometimes I just use the tap water 🙂 The preheating thing works wonders with the big thermos and coffee for hubs when he goes hunting-he says it stays hot all day.