Carry-all

Hey yall, it's that time again..time to take to the friendly skies and having to pack food to last a few days. Eating healthy while on the road is NOT an easy thing. It takes alot of planning, hard work, and dedication.The big challenge is to be able to pack alot of food in a small space. It takes alot of creativity, AND finding and investing in the items that you need to accomplish that. It's a trial and error situation until the find the right items that will work for you. For me, this time I will be using my trusty salad dressing holder. And since my "refrigerator" cooler is back east in Philly, I have purchased a medium sized cooler to hold food that will last me a few days. I made some chicken salad ,quinoa boiled eggs, a pack of salad greens, crackers, protein powder, low fat chocolate milk, and a few other things. Hmmm.. so how am I going to fit all this into a cooler?..one that is NOT the size of Manhattan? Well my containers of course. And the size and type of your containers are very important. I usually use the disposable Glad, or Ziplock, Dollar Store brand. But they either lose their shape,dont seal securely, or are too big, or too small for what I want to store..
Well I finally found the perfect containers! I found them at a Japanese dollar store in El Cerrito,Ca called Ichiban Kan. They sell all Japanese items. I found my bananna holder there, they have sushi sets, tea sets, and they have a section for containers to hold your food to take to work. Their containers are a bit smaller than our average containers. They are made to hold a lunch size portion of rice, noodles, sushi, soup, ect. As Americans, we eat large portions, the Japanese eat smaller portions, so these containers are totally AWESOME!!. And they are cute! They come in many sizes and are secure when closed. And the most important thing is that they are PORTION SIZE! I am able to get 7 containers in my cooler! Plus a bag of lettuce and my salad dressing holder. And thats only the stuff that I need to keep cold!
ichibankanusa.com
Anyway, for those of my flying partners that happen to overnight in SanFrancisco, you're in luck! There is an Ichiban Kan in SanFrancisco! It's in Japan town in the Miyoko Mall ( between Post and Laguna streets). The address is 22 Peace Plaza #540 SanFrancisco,Ca 94115 . Their number is 415-409-0472. There is also one in San Bruno for my Peninsula peeps. I will post photo's and links at the end of this article. For those of you who are wondering, "where can I get these items if I dont live in the SanFrancisco Bay Area?" There is a website that I found
daisojapan.com
They sell many of the containers that I purchased. But they sell them in bulk..BUT really cheap! Check it out.

Well it's time for me to start packing up my food. I hope you all found this info helpful. And if you cannot find the smaller containers, just keep on the look out for containers that will work for YOU! That's all that matters!
Take care, stay fit, and happy travels!!