How to Pack a Bento Box
A bento box is the Japanese container that lunches on the go are packed into. Kids take bento boxes to lunch and adults take bentos to work. A bento lunch useful for maintaining a proper balance of foods and to limit portions. They're also fun to make and fun to eat. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Start by obtaining a bento box. The box can be a plastic one like the ones that Japanese kids carry to lunch, or it can be the more expensive lacquered variety. The boxes can often be found in Asian grocery stores. In cities without these stores, bento boxes can be ordered online. Some people use other types of plastic containers, like Tupperware, in place of boxes made as bentos.
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Get accessories for the bento lunch. These sometimes include paper or silicone food dividers, molds to shape the food or nori punches to decorate the seaweed wraps. The idea when packing a bento lunch is to make the food attractive and appealing.
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Use three parts rice to every one parts of fish or meat and two parts of vegetables. This keeps the meal balanced, calories low and nutrition high. You can add one additional part, dessert, if desired. Some people pack a dessert in an additional, smaller bento box.
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Arrange the food in a way that makes it look appetizing. Kids' bento boxes are sometimes arranged into faces or other shapes to make the meal fun. This can be aided by food coloring and specially-shaped food partitions to create the desired pictures. Paper, plastic and silicone partitions are made for bento box meals to help mothers to create the exact shapes and pictures they want to achieve. Bento box art books have pictures of creative bento box artwork to help parents to create interesting designs.
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Send the bento lunch along with a child to use as a school lunch or with an adult to use as a balanced lunch at work. The meal should generally be refrigerated if possible. If that's not possible, use bento antibacterial sheets inside the box to take care of any growing bacteria. These are usually available from the same sources that sell bento boxes and accessories.
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