Does anyone know where I can purchase safe lunch containers that will fit in my daughters lunch box?

Safe as in...?

Try getting a paper bag.

What do you mean by "safe"? You're not going to get many lucid answers until you respond to that question.

If by "safe", herbsincalifornia, you mean plastic containers that don't contain BPA, then you can do a Google search for "non-BPA containers" or "no bisphenol A containers" or similar criteria.

Don't mean to give you short shrift and just send you a-Googlin, but there's many venues out there where you can either purchase them online or find out where you can purchase such items locally.

I would consider "safe" to be a glass or ceramic container with a secure, leak proof lid that could safely go from the fridge to my knapsack to the microwave and then the dishwasher.

The ideal would be some sort of a small,(2 cup) covered cassarole type dish with a removable spring clip fastener. The fastener would secure both the lid and an easily removable silicone or rubber gasket.

You could remove the spring clip and gasket and replace the lid so you didn't splatter the soup all over the microwave, and you wouldn't have to deal with the waste and mess of putting a paper towel over the food.

My perfect lunch bag then would be an insulated or quilted cotton bag that could go into the washing machine when it got yucky. It would have a side pocket to hold real silverware and a real cloth napkin, and it would be sized to hold my "safe" container.

A line of these "safe" containers would include dishes sized from 1-3 cups, and shaped to hold soup, salads, beverages, sandwiches, a side dish and a dessert. The containers would be civilized so that eating a sack lunch would be an aesthetically pleasing experience rather than the nasty "snarf down a squished sandwich at my desk" affair that it is right now.

But for something to send to school with a child, it would have to be something not so breakable. Maybe something stainless steel, or a small thermos?

--J--

I agree. Ceramic dishes are pretty fragile, although I have found that Corning makes a line of ceramic dishes that are amazingly resistant to breakage. I have a cassarole dish that has been dropped a number of times without suffering harm. Unfortunately, neither they nor anyone else seems to make them with leakproof lids that can be secured for commuter travel.

However, since presumably your daughter doesn't microwave her lunch, one place you might look is Garret Wade. They mostly sell high end woodworking tools, but they also have a small line of office, garden, and household products, including some stainless steel lunch containers.

Also, LL Bean has some stainless steel canteens that work pretty well for beverages. The only plastic part is the lid, and I think it's free of BPA.

I'm not wishing for the coming economic catastrophe, but I do have some hope that it will stimulate all of us to reconsider our relationship with food...especially the fast fat and cheap carbo fixes that are staples of the average working class lunch diet.

I am much more aggressive about packing a lunch in lieu of a cafeteria meal and I think this is a growing trend. Hopefully one of the coming clouds will have a silver lining of thought and innovation in the area of better ways to pack and carry a healthy and wholesome brown bag.

For a child, you can try the Thermos line of "FUNtainers." They have water bottles and food containers in stainless steel that are insulated, so they keep foods fresher longer too. I use them and like them.