Packed lunch
A
packed lunch is a lunch prepared at home and carried to be eaten somewhere else, such as school, a workplace, or at an outing. The food is usually wrapped in plastic, aluminum foil, or paper and can be carried in a lunch box, paper bag, or plastic bag. While packed lunches are usually taken from home by the people who are going to eat them, in Mumbai, India, tiffin boxes are most often picked up from the home and brought to workplaces later in the day by so-called dabbawallas. It is also possible to buy packed lunches from stores in several countries. Lunch boxes made out of metal, plastic or vinyl are now popular with today's youth. Lunch boxes provide a way to take heavier lunches in a sturdier box or bag. It is also environmentally friendly. In the United States, an informal meeting at work, over lunch, where everyone brings a packed lunch, is a
brown-bag lunch or colloquially a "
brown bag", and the practice known as
brownbagging. There are also white and other color bags for seasonal use.