During Frugal Bento Month, I have a simple challenge for you. That is to keep track of how much you save by making and bringing your own lunch instead of buying lunch.

Note that if you're already making bentos almost daily and you have a good grip on your spending, you may not see the benefits. But if you're just thinking about making bentos or just starting out, or if you have no idea how much you might be saving, it's somewhere to start. Or perhaps you can use it to convince your spouse/boy/girlfriend or family about the benefits of bentos.

This is a guest post by niceties of Main-Main Masak-Masak, where she blogs about how she deals with her food intolerences and dietary preferences. I've been an admirer of her calm, elegant and very informative essays for quite a long time, so I'm really happy to have her on board as a guest blogger!

It was because of increasingly complex food sensitivities that I was motivated to learn more about cooking and bento culture, so as to be able to adapt recipes and to make my packed meals from home more appetising. The principles of bento culture go a long way in making our food-intolerance-friendly lunchboxes more tasty and attractive. Learning to be creative in those two areas is particularly important when one is faced with the limitations of food restrictions. Here is a quick guide to my approach to bento for special diets, summarising the key ideas I've mentioned across many different postings on my blog.

This is a guest post by Tracy, aka Crazed Veggie, who blogs about bentos, amigurumi and personal rants and raves at CrazedVeggie.com. She's lost 50 pounds (22.7 kg) so far since June of last year, and uses bentos as part of her successful weight loss program!

The story goes a little something like this. I've been overweight all my life. Struggling with the weight had been an everyday thing and I've never known anything different. Two years ago I decided to become vegetarian. I did this due to ethical reasons (I just couldn't go on knowing that an animal had to die for me to shove food in my mouth!). Once I became dedicated and seen how easy it was for me to make such a massive change in my food habits, I decided that I was going to watch everything that I ate and not destroy my body any longer. I joined a calorie counting website and went on a mission to lose weight. That was June of 2008, and so far I've lost 50 pounds!

I began incorporating bento box making into my weight loss program in January. As soon as I began researching the history behind them and the many websites and blogs dedicated to them, I knew this was something that I just had to be a part of.

Welcome to Week 4 of the 5 week Getting Started Bento Challenge! This week's focus is: Making bentos for others.

UPDATE: Details of the Challenge are now up here! We'll start on January 13th.

The Washington Post says to use a salad plate for portion control, but I say, what about a bento box? Plus, the germ of an idea.