Have I mentioned my new diet? I’ve found another passion.

Well, it’s not really a diet; I’ve been packing my own Bento style lunches and even though it’s slowly taking over my life, I love it!

Until a couple of weeks ago the only Bento I knew was Portuguese for St. Benedict (Sao Bento).

A Bento is basically a boxed lunch in Japanese cuisine – but it’s so much more when you consider the time, art and flair involved in making these meals.

Pearlsa mentioned a while back that she’d like take lunch to work, I didn’t care – I hated taking lunch to work, I tried; it’s boring, tedious and not cool.

She found out about Bentos through a blog (how did people find stuff out before the Internet?), she thought it’ll be interesting but I still wasn’t keen on the idea.

So we were in Bellingham two weekends ago when we came upon the new Daiso Store at the Bellis Fair Mall I just feel in love with the little Bento boxes, although I decided the boxes were too small for lunch, maybe a snack, I thought.

I bought two Bento boxes that day brought them home and went on the Internet to find out what the heck people put in those tiny boxes. I didn’t know!

There’s a massive online community of Bento lovers out there, and I had no idea. It felt like some secret society that I wasn’t privy too, kind of how it felt when I discovered the soldering community (although, I’m still not soldering… but I at least know they exist).

I’ve just had my first full week of taking bento lunches to work. It’s amazing for portion control, I’m eating a much healthier balanced diet because I pack a little of everything. I like to think I’m saving money as I’m not buying lunch anymore. I don’t bother with dinner that much because I’m still full by the time I get home. I feel like I’ll be writing an entry soon about how I lost weight on Bento lunches.

Today I had rice with Cuban style beans, orange wedges, red grapes, mixed nuts, candy & raincoast crisps, all packed in my uber cute Bonjour, les fleures box (not pictured)

There’s a huge resource out there to tap into, here are a few sites that inspired me:

Bento Yum, Lunch in a box, Livejournal Bento Community, Flcikr Bento Boxes, Bento Corner, Just Bento

Technorati Tags: Bento, food, lunch, bento boxes