The Bottom Line
Pros
- Keeps food hot or cold for hours.
- Soft-sided and small enough for kids to carry easily.
- Easier to open than a vacuum-sealed thermos.
- Can easily carry hot sandwiches, chicken nuggets and other foods besides soups.
Cons
- Can't carry hot and cold foods together in one lunch box.
- More expensive than a typical lunch box.
- Heavier than most cold packs.
- Directions could be easier to follow.
Description
- Soft-sided nylon lunch box with an insulated pack that keeps food hot or cold for hours.
- Has a shoulder strap for easy carrying.
- Insulated pack can be heated in the microwave to keep food hot or frozen to keep it cold.
- Retails for $29.95 plus shipping.
Guide Review - Insulated Lunch Box Review - Is the Lunch & Go Worth the Money?
If your kids prefer cold pasta salad, you can send that too, and it will stay cold.
The beauty of this insulated lunch box is that it opens up a world of hot lunch possibilities for kids, ranging from leftover meatloaf to baked ziti. And you don't have to try to stuff them into a container designed for soup.
What's more, the Lunch & Go is lightweight, easy for kids to carry, and far easier for young kids to open than a vacuum-sealed thermos.
Drawbacks of this Insulated Lunch Box
Unfortunately, you can't send hot and cold foods together in the same lunch box. That's because once the heating pack is heated, it will keep everything inside the Lunch & Go hot. The same is true when the pack is cold. That means if your child wants a cold drink with his hot food, he'll have to carry it separately or buy it. This is the one area where a thermos beats this insulated lunch tote.The other drawback of the Lunch & Go is the price. At $29.95, it's more expensive than a lunch box alone, and even a lunch box and a thermos together.
And the directions are really poorly written. If the company were less concerned about trademarking every aspect of the product, you could actually figure out how to use the Lunch & Go in about 30 seconds.
Unfortunately, the directions are full of jargon ("put the powerpouch with the Microcore pac inside of it in the microwave...Carefully drop the heated Microcore pac out of the powerpouch and into the webbed pocket of your Warm & Tote.")
The good news is once you take 15 minutes to wade through the jargon, you'll know how to use this insulated lunch box, and you can throw away the directions.
