Product Review: ECOlunchboxes Three-in-One

ECOLunchboxes is an amazing company. The more I read about them the more impressed I am. Their Three-in-One Lunchbox is a perfect choice for the 'natural materials' purist. It is by far the least expensive stainless steel bento box I've seen available in the States.

At first, I thought it was just too small to hold the hearty lunches my little people and I need after a long morning of activities. Maybe big enough after a morning of snuggling up with read-alouds....

But on the contrary, because a bento box is designed to be packed tightly, even a pretty darn hearty lunch fits just fine in here. (In fact, one day I stuffed it and Isaiah couldn't finish.)

Besides the obvious drawback of being unable to go in the microwave, here's my biggest beef with this cool contraption:

Not that it's just this box... I've yet to find a bento-style box that fits a whole sandwich! Not that big a deal to the kids, actually, as they usually prefer their sandwiches cut in pieces. But for an adult lunch, it would be nice not to HAVE to cut it up.

My much smaller beef is that contrary to pics I've seen on the internet, the separate small container does NOT fit on one side of the container, but only fits down the middle... a very small quibble, just gets on on of my very few OCD nerves. It usually works fine since I usually serve more than two sides for lunch.

My third beef is just that it doesn't work too well for a lap lunch with the 2 separate containers and sometimes we have to eat in the car, as hard as I try to avoid it. It doesn't bother Isaiah, though. He says he loves it.

That little box that nests in the upper container is my favorite part. It doesn't have a plastic or silicone gasket of any kind, but it closes snugly and is almost water-tight. I wouldn't actually put water in it, but so far not even really juicy fruit has leaked out of it. I'd like a few more of just this little box for carrying snacks in my purse, and they do sell it by itself.

Overall, I give this lunchbox 2 thumbs up. I made the unfortunate discovery that ECOlunchboxes also makes some stainless steel divided plates, which I am now coveting for lunches and snacks at home, specially when we eat outside on the cement patio. Oh, and as a tip for many of you who use them, many of ECOlunchboxes' products are available through Frontier Co-op- wink-wink-nudge-nudge- at very nice prices.

Ecolunchboxes also sent me 2 of their beautiful Furoshiki lunch wraps to try out, AND GIVE AWAY!!! (The other part of the giveaway is a set of bento tools which I will show you soon.) I don't have a picture at the moment because in addition to making lunch today, I hit all the grocery sales, made a triple batch of granola, a quadruple batch of soaked bread dough, and continued to build a whole baby from scratch. And I'm really. Really. REALLY. tired. So I'll give you a pic of the gorgeous Furoshikis tomorrow, pinky promise.

I'll pack more of our lunches in the Ecolunchbox as April progresses, but I also have a couple other neat-o bento boxes to show you, so stay tuned for those, too.


"Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!"
-Albert Einstein