Zrecs Qa Planetbox || ZRecommends: Consumer research, consumer advocacy, and unbiased product reviews for parents

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ZRecs Q&A: Planetbox

By Jeremiah | July 01, 2010 | 3 comments / Comment now

We've received some great questions on yesterday's PlanetBox review.

Jennifer writes:

I was wondering how this would work with keeping food cold. My daughter has a nut allergy. So we send lunches everyday to school. Most days, she likes to take some kind of meat that would need to be kept cold.

Thanks in advance for your feedback on this.

Jennifer, we aren't experts on safe meat temperatures, but I can tell you two things: The PlanetBox case is insulated, and also has enough room in it that we were able to slide a 1/2" thick plastic ice pack inside to go under the lunch box. If you were particularly concerned about having the cold pack directly on one of the areas, you could affix it to the inside of the insulated case, and all the cooling mojo would be going straight to the section you had the meat in.

From My Boaz's Ruth:

I’ve looked at Planetboxes before but so far, I can’t justify $35 for it.

The magnets concern me. If it is in their backpack along with a CD or a DVD, etc, will the magnet affect the information on the other?

Nope. DVDs and CD are optical media, and aren't affected by magnets. I do remember that issue, though, from the days of cassettes and videotape! (Insert nostalgia for radio-recorded mix tape here.) The one thing that would be sketchy would be having this in a bag where it came in close contact with a computer, but hey, we wouldn't recommend doing that with a lunch box anyway.

Mariah wrote:

Looks great… I just wish there was an option for hot food. We regularly send leftovers in a Thermos - soups, pasta, etc. Those wouldn’t work well in this box. Maybe we could also make a fabric envelope that includes a pocket for an add-on thermos (I don’t think it would fit in the pocket of the PlanetBox carrier that’s designed for a water bottle.)

That would be cool. If you do make one, send us a photo. We'd love to see it.

And finally, from Julie:

For our son's lunch "main course" we usually send him to school with dinner leftovers, which typically consist of a green veggie, meat, and rice or quinoa. He very rarely gets a sandwhich. I'm concerned that the rice or other side with small pieces won’t stay in the appropriate compartment. Have you tried it with something like rice or a small grain? Thanks!

Here's a video I shot this morning to show how the PlanetBox contains larger food in its four sections:

But that didn't address your question directly, so I also pulled a jar of grain out of the fridge (rye was on hand) and filled up a compartment to check.

Looks like a win!

Categories: food

1. Lila [7/02/10]

That’s extremely cool.

Have you given up on your Laptop Lunchbox in favor of this one? Alas, we just ordered one for our daughter the other day, just before you posted about Planetbox! (I’m not sure I would have shelled out the $ for it, though.)

2. Jeremiah [7/02/10]

The Laptop Lunch box is a very good system and we highly recommend it. It also has an advantage over the PlanetBox in that it has inner containers with tight-fitting lids.

We still really like the Laptop Lunch system. Back when Z was a vegetarian in daycare and needed a daily lunch prepared (she is now a vegetarian unschooler, so doesn’t need packed lunches as often) all three of us used Laptop Lunch systems, and we even bought a few extra sets of containers to keep things running smoothly. Our overkill is probably why ultimately the number of parts started feeling like clutter, so we’d recommend keeping it simple and owning only a single system per user, rather than buying extra containers. (They do work great for adult lunches, by the way.)

More broadly, though, we are finding that the place of plastic in our lives is diminishing, for a number of reasons. It’s something we’ve been observing in ourselves for a while as we work our way around to writing about it, but it is more of a lifestyle change than a product safety or quality issue. We’ll write about it as soon as we’ve fully collected our thoughts on the matter and know how we want to explain what we’re experiencing.

3. Kaely [7/02/10]

We have a PlanetBox lunchbox for my son and he used it all last year. I love it. We have a Laptop Lunch Box too and I was concerned about my 5 year old being able to open the containers on his own and being able to keep up with all the pieces. And I like that the planetbox is stainless steel instead of plastic.

It’s a little bit heavy when combined with a water bottle.

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