It was another Thursday noon. Ming and Joe rearranged the cafeteria tables so that our software engineering team could sit together for lunch. We all went to get food. Ming and Vicky brought leftovers from home—stir-fry over rice. Steve's wife made him a tuna sandwich. Poor Joe and Greg were mopping up the pool of grease from the pizza they got at our corporate cafeteria. Four napkins down, two more, and it might be sort of edible. Paul came to join us. He saw a pile of greasy napkins and sighed, "Pizza day, isn't it…" He came back with a salad of brownish lettuce and carrots, two pieces of square mushy whole wheat bread, and a chocolate chip cookie. The lunch conversation always started the same way.
—What have you go there, Helen?
—Stuffed cabbage.
—Did you make it?
—Of course, I had to slave over the microwave for 5 minutes.
—Is it one of those frozen things again? You bring them everyday. I can imagine what Helen's fridge at home looks like—all frozen food.

It's true that my freezer is filled with frozen lunches, and other useful things like homemade stocks, and tart dough. Cooking is one of my great passions. I make dinner every night. But, no one in my department believed me, at least not until I brought a tomato onion tart for our annual international dinner. Ironically, one of the reasons that I bring prepackaged lunches to work is because I love to cook. Unlike my husband, I am one of those people who can't eat everything in unlimited amounts and stay skinny. I tried not eating fat, not eating carbs, and every other diet known to man. None of it worked because eventually I wanted the forbidden food badly enough that I gave up. The only thing that worked is calorie budgeting. I eat everything, but it has to add up to no more than a certain amount of calories per day. Organic frozen meals and soups give me an opportunity to put something healthy and light into my body, and save those precious calories for dinner. People often ask me why I can't just bring a sandwich or leftovers. I don't make sandwiches for work because I hate mushy processed bread; good, rustic breads like baguette, focaccia and ciabatta have to be bought and eaten the same day. Shopping for bread each morning is not on my to do list; waking up for gym is hard enough. Besides, a good sandwich is not exactly low calorie food. Even though I cook every night, I don't have leftovers. I mostly cook fish, which does not taste good re-warmed. Having leftovers also translates to having seconds. It is too tempting to get just a little more and a little more. That's how Winnie the Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's house.

My current cafeteria is awful. Since I work in the suburbs, I have to drive a good distance to get real food. But the idea of bringing frozen meals actually started couple of years ago at my previous job in Cambridge with a myriad of wonderful cafes and restaurants two minutes from my office. I found myself putting on quite a few pounds as I ate hefty sandwiches of prosciutto on focaccia and butternut squash lasagna. I started getting salads, but after eating a salad for lunch five days a weak I got tired of it. That's when I decided to try organic soup cups and frozen meals from my local organic store. Many of these organic companies are now available at regular supermarkets too, so you don't have to live in Cambridge to get them. I've read the labels very carefully; many of these meals are very nutritious. Organic companies do not use MSGs and preservatives; their products are often low in fat and high in fiber. The dishes available give me a nice variety so that I don't get bored: vegetable lasagna, quesadillas, stuffed cabbage, Pad Thai, country lentil soup, and couscous to name a few. Some great companies for frozen meals are Seeds of Change, Amy's, Ethnic Gourmet, and Mon Cuisine (it should actually be "Ma Cuisine", but I guess their marketing folks thought "Mon" sounded more French). Not all their dishes are great, but in about a month I tried most of them and found my favorites. Fantastic, as the name suggests makes fantastic soups and hot cereals. They even got me to eat breakfast. Eating their cranberry orange oatmeal makes the task of going through my e-mail much more cheerful.

Vicky once asked me whether the food I brought was very expensive because it was organic. Organic frozen food costs just as much as conventional frozen food, and definitely less than our terrible cafeteria. The frozen lunches are all under $4.00. The soups and cereals are around $1.00. I can spend a dollar on a bagel or muffin at work, or I can have a hot cereal with more fiber, flavor, and less fat and calories. My lunch dish and the fruit that I bring add up to under $5. That's what my co-workers spend on couple of slices of bad pizza and a soda. Prepackaged lunches are affordable, convenient, healthy, and tasty. The bad thing is that now Ming and Wesley started bringing them, and I no longer have the exclusive use of the microwave.