How Just Bento is organized, and finding your way around

I have noticed a lot of new visitors coming to Just Bento lately, so now is a good a time as ever to explain how the site is organized.

The Sitemap

If you just want to go straight to an overview of everything that’s on Just Bento, try the Sitemap [25].

Articles on Just Bento are divided into various areas

• Get Started [26] is an intro into bento making. If this is all new to you, you may want to skim through the articles there.
• Bento basics [27] is a how-to section that explains various aspects of the bento making lifestyle.
• An important tool I use to keep myself organized is a weekly meal planner. There are two versions available: the simple Weekly Bento Planner [28], and the more comprehensive Weekly Menu Planner [29]. Both are free printable downloads.

• Complete bentos show you assembled bento boxes, with an explanation of the contents, a calorie count, and often a timeline for how to assemble it. Each complete bento either lists the recipes for the contents, or if the recipes are more involved, link to the recipe pages.

  • Bentos numbered 1 to 30 [30]
  • Bentos numbered 31 to 60 [31]
  • Bentos numbered 61 to present [32]

• Recipes are just that, recipes for individual components that go into a bento box. I’ve broadly divided the recipes into three types:

  • Mains [33] (proteins and carbs) - the stars of your bento box.
  • Sides and fillers [34] (mainly vegetables) - to fill up your bento and add to it nutritionally.
  • Staples or johbisai [35]: Items that can be made in advance and stocked in the freezer, refrigerator or pantry. This includes both mains and sides, as well as supplementary things like furikake.

You can also start at the Recipe Index [36] page. From there you can go directly to individual articles, or click on various categories, such as Japanese recipes [37], Not Japanese recipes [38], vegan recipes [39], egg recipes [40], and so on.

Besides all of the above, you’ll find product reviews and various musings on bento!

The core philosophy

The three articles below are at the core of my bento-making thinking, and are the reasons why I make bento for myself and my other half:

• How bento lunches helped me lose 30 lbs [41]
• Why bento if you work at home? [42]
• Bento for your spirit and body [43]

A bit about the recipes on Just Bento

All of the recipes presented on Just Bento are bento or lunchbox friendly!

Just Bento is the little sister of Just Hungry [44], a general food blog/site that is mainly (though not exclusively) focused on Japanese cooking. For this reason, a lot of the recipes and bentos on Just Bento are Japanese too - after all, it is a Japanese tradition, and I (Maki) am Japanese! However you’ll find plenty of non-Japanese recipes, bentos that are not based on rice, and so on here too. Even with the Japanese recipes, I try to stay away from ones that use ingredients that are too exotic or impossible to get a hold of outside of Japan. I currently live in the middle of Europe in a country (Switzerland) with only a very small expat Japanese community, so I know how difficult it can be to buy some things that are taken for granted in Japan, or regions of the world like California or Hawaii where Japanese groceries are plentiful.

I’m an omnivore, but in recent years I’ve become more interested in vegetarian and vegan eating (see 75% vegetarian [45]), so there are also several vegan/vegetarian recipes and bentos. I like to alternate my bentos between meat-based ones and vegetarian/vegan ones.

Finally, since I don’t have kids and only make bentos every day for 2 adults, the site is more focused on bentos for adults, but I have a great advisor in my sister (who has 2 small kids), not to mention my mother, so you should find many healthy, tasty and kid-friendly recipes too.

What recipes go on Just Bento, and what on Just Hungry?

Since Just Bento just started in October of 2007, there are several bento-friendly recipes over on Just Hungry that were posted prior to that date. Just Hungry is also where you will find some basic, foundation type recipes and how-tos, such as how to cook Japanese style rice and sushi rice [46]. If you are interested in Japanese cooking as well as bentos, you might want to follow both sites.

The two requirements for any recipe posted on Just Bento (excluding the forums [47], where there are separate sections for Bento Recipes and General Recipes) is that it has to taste great, and it has to be suitable for bento. Furthermore, most recipes are on the healthy and low-calorie side too! (There are a few exceptions for often-requested favorites and such.)

New to the site: Just Bento Forums

The Just Bento Community Forum [47] is where we discuss everything bento-related, and some non-bento related things too. It’s a busy and friendly place - check it out!

The Search box searches both Just Bento and Just Hungry

Just Hungry [3] is Just Bento’s big sister; it’s now nearly 5 years old, and has lots of information of interest to bento makers. For this reason, the search box you see on every page on the left sidebar searches both Just Bento and Just Hungry at the same time. Chances are I’ve already written about a subject you’re interested in when it comes to Japanese cooking, so try the search and see if it’s there!

I am always open to suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact [24] me.

Advertising

Thank you for your interest in advertising on JustBento.com. Established in 2007 as a sister site of JustHungry.com [3], Just Bento is one of the leading web sites dedicated to the subject of bento box meals. With more than 350,000 site subscribers according to Feedburner [48] (more site access statistics on request), the site attracts a loyal readership that is interested in bento boxes and equipment, lunch ideas, healthy eating, as well as Japanese popular culture.

We offer direct advertising opportunities in two formats: Banner ads, which appear on every page of the site in the sidebar, and RSS feed sponsorship. Banner ads are available on a monthly basis, and RSS feed sponsorship (reaching 350,000+ subscribers) is available on a weekly or monthly basis. Please contact us [24] for current availability and pricing.

An advertiser on JustBento.com must be in a bento, lunch, Japanese food or culture, or related business. Weight loss schemes, diet pills and ‘nutritional supplement’ sellers, or any business unrelated to the interests of our readers are not accepted.

Please note that we do not offer any kind of text link advertising, nor do we do link exchanges. We are also not interested in SEO services.

Individuals who wish to post classified type ads for sale or swap of bento related items may use the free Swapmeet and Marketplace [49] section of our community forum. All posts are subject to scrutiny by the forum staff and may be removed if deemed inappropriate.

(Updated September 2010)

Copyright and usage terms of content on this site

All content, unless specifically noted otherwise is ©Makiko Itoh.

Creative Commons

[50]All recipes, images, text and other relevant materials on this site, with the exception of those specifically noted as otherwise, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License [50], under the jurisdiction of Switzerland.

What this means

If you use any material on this site, you must give credit to this site. Only non-commercial uses are allowed. If you wish to license any images, articles and other content that is on this site for commercial use, please contact us first [51].

Students: If you wish to use an image or other content on this site for your non-commercial classwork, you do not have to ask permission, but you must give credit to this site.

You may not use the contents of this site within a frameset housed on another server without the express written permission of Makiko Itoh.

Any other use will be deemed to be a violation of copyright law.

Guest Posting on Just Bento

Periodically we send out a call for guest posters on Just Bento. Guest posting here is a chance to reach a large audience of bento enthusiasts, and gain exposure for your site or blog.

Guest posting guidelines

• Please note that we do not accept guest posts on a rolling basis. When we are accepting guest posts, you’ll know about it - if you are subscribed to this site. Regular readers of this site are given first priority.
• Once you see a call for guest posts, please submit a query using the site contact form [24] first. Do not submit unsolicited full posts/articles. Queries or article proposals when we do not have an open call for guest posts will probably be ignored.
• Your query should state: the title of your proposed guest post, a synopsis, and a link to your site/blog, as well as the name you wish to be used as the author name.
• We will not accept guest posts from blogs or sites that we deem to have no connection whatsoever to this site, at our sole discretion.
• If your post proposal is accepted, you will have 1 week to submit your article to us. Please format it as plain text with the appropriate line breaks, or in Markdown format (no Word files or preformatted HTML files). Any images to accompany the article should be in .jpg, .gif or .png format, and no wider than 500 pixels. Links to the appropriate Flickr page for an image are fine.
• Your article should be at least 500 words in length, and not have appeared elsewhere previously. (You are free to re-post the article on your own site after it appears here on Just Bento.) You should have the full copyright and/or right to use any text, images, video, etc. submitted in relation to your guest post.
• The theme of site or blog to which the post will link should have some relationship to bentos, lunches, cooking, or Japanese culture. Personal blogs are subject to review before we okay them. Any blog or site that deals with unrelated or unacceptable subject matter as determined by us will be rejected.
• Please do read through the existing posts on this site to see if the topic you intend to write about has already been covered. If it already has been covered, chances that your proposal will be accepted may be slim. (Example: We already have several guest posts about the parent-child bond created via bento lunches. We probably won’t accept yet another unless it’s truly exceptional.)
• We are unable to pay for guest posts at this time. You will be guest posting for the exposure it brings you.
• You retain all copyrights to all materials submitted, with exception of allowing us to publish the materials on Just Bento first.

How bento calories are calculated on Just Bento

Each complete bento presented on Just Bento has a calorie count. This is derived from the following information:

• Official nutritional information labels on packaged foods
• Online nutrition information databases, such as the ones at Calorie Lab [52] and CalorieKing [53]
• English language nutritional databases often have inaccurate or misleading information about Japanese foods, so I rely on the official food nutrient database (五訂食品標準成分表) which is published by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and is the standard nutrition information text for dieticianss and other food professionals in Japan. (There are several consumer-friendly versions of this very useful publication available in Japanese. I use one with lots of cute pictures.)

Keep in mind that all calorie counts are approximate, since portion sizes may vary.

Most of the complete bentos (the numbered ones) are around 500 calories or lower. They can easily be made bigger or smaller just by increasing the volume of each component. (I frequently show larger “Guy” variations.)

Cup measures and weight and such

The capacity of “1 cup” varies from country to country, in a maddening way. In the U.S. it’s about 240ml (236.588238 ml); in Japan it’s 200ml; in the UK it’s 436ml. I use 240ml (standard U.S. cup measure) as an approximimate middle ground, especially for rice. If you are very concerned about every single calorie, it’s best to invest in a good kitchen scale.

Product Review Policy

From time to time, you may see a review of a bento related product, service or book on this site. Unless specifically stated otherwise, all reviewed items have been purchased, and not received for free. Any review of a product that has been sent to us is clearly labeled as such. We also give away all such review items in reader giveaways, or offer them as contest prizes. We do not ever accept payment for a product review.

Here are examples of reviews of products send by a publisher/maker:

• 501 Bento Box Lunches [54]
• Face Food [55]

Here are some reviews of products we purchased ourselves:

• Saisai Lunch [56]
• Yaseru Obento Recipe [57]

Links to product pages may be affiliate links, which give a small commission to us in the event that someone makes a purchase by clicking on that link (at no additional cost to the purchaser). We have affiliate relationships with Amazon.com [58] (also Amazon Japan [59]/Amazon UK [60]/Amazon Germany [61]) and JList [62]/JBox [63].

If you are a publisher, maker or PR company, please do not send us anything for review unless we agree to take a look at your item or book. Please contact [24] us first. In addition, the acceptance of a product for review does not guarantee that the product will be reviewed positively, or at all.