One of the early decisions we had to make was what to put in our packed lunches. Toby takes lunch into school every day and in the past this consisted of a sandwich, a snack bar, a bag of crisps, salad vegetables and fruit. But snack bars and crisps are invariably packaged in plastic  – believe me, we looked high and low. We came up with various ideas to replace the snacky part of his lunch, for example homemade cheese straws and flapjacks. If I take a packed lunch to work it’s usually a salad or leftovers from the night before in a tupperware box. A lot of the time though I would just grab something from M&S on the way to work. M&S sandwiches and salads are packaged in plastic, as are most express supermarket lunch items, so this was no longer an option. Packing my own lunch suddenly became a necessity if I didn’t want to run out to a café or bistro at lunchtime. But I wasn’t enamoured with my sad, utilitarian looking tupperware boxes. A little research showed that there is a whole world of non-plastic lunch boxes out there, from Indian tiffins to Japanese bentos. I bought the modern stainless steel lunch box pictured above. This box has no polymer or silicone seal so it won’t hold liquid like salad dressing. But the clips work great and as long as you keep it upright there is no problem with spills. It came with a small box inside which is useful for nuts, raisins, cherry tomatoes etc. I bought my box in a shop in Oxford but they can be found online from various retailers. It is beautifully made and comes in different sizes and even in double and triple layers. I now really enjoy packing my lunch and don’t mind leaving it out on my desk for all to admire! Check out all the different styles of boxes at ecolunchboxes.com.