Book Review: Bento for Beginners: 60 Recipes for Easy Bento Box Lunches

Bento for Beginners: 60 Recipes for Easy Bento Box Lunches
This book got my attention just from the cover, so appealing and healthy looking.
The book includes a lot of photographs and it also includes a table of contents where there are recipes.
There is a lot of introductory material that includes not only about the Bento Basics but about the history from Japan, the benefits of eating this lifestyle, and flavor.
There are also sections on the formula to make sure you get it just right and to make sure that your kitchen is ready.  There is a section on the containers, storage and safety and troubleshooting with tips on things to keep in mind the tools and equipment. Everyone should have these items already in their house along with extras. There is a list showing ingredients that you can keep on hand that will freeze good or refrigerate well.  There is also a section on prepping and organizing that will cut down on the time that it takes you to put all these together.
There is a section on how to use the book as well, a lot of common sense things that you probably already are doing.
Each of the recipes start with the title, a brief summary of the dish, information about the storage and how long it will keep for and in what appliance as in the refrigerator or the freezer.
It also lists prep time and the cook time along with the ingredients which I would substitute for my healthier lifestyle: low sodium, low sugar, low fat products, fresh vs canned or processed.
Some of the recipes have a big color photograph on one page and some also include other notes.
A sauce is listed and gives you a reference page where you can find that recipe at the end of the book.
Directions are given how to make the dish the night before - very easy directions and it also has directions for in the morning and what you need to do to get it ready for the lunchbox.
It also includes some nutritional information per serving for calories, total fat - not broken up by good or bad, sodium, cholesterol, total carbs, fiber, sugar and protein.
Also at the very top of each recipe it states how many Bento servings each recipe includes it and a listing of gluten-free, nut-free, vegan and other food allergy categories, vegetarian, and kid friendly.
What I really like about this book is that there are many super healthy dishes to make that hardly take any time at all and you can put them in either the fridge or the freezer and save them for another day or for your lunch the next day or for a week later.
I do make a lot of extra food per meal and store it much like this book describes.
I don't like that the print is not really that dark - I wish it was darker but otherwise it has a lot more information than most of the recipes I've seen.
In the back of the book is a section called staples and sauces which are easy things to make that you could prepare ahead of time and always have them on hand, like condiments.
One of them is for the steamed rice with a short summary and it also tells you how to make it in the saucepan but I have also made it in a pressure cooker and in a steam pot for the microwave so it doesn't take any time at all.
There's also a lot of things on seasoning and again it lists the nutritional information by servings or tablespoon and it also lists which allergy category it fits into.
There are no pictures for this section.
At the very end there's also a measurement conversion chart and there is also a listing of resources available.
An index of everything that is in this book is included at the end.
It ends with the section on acknowledgements and about the author with her picture.
I really like this book and I'm going to keep it handy especially just for the nutritional information and there are 60 recipes in here.
There are many varieties to choose from.
I received this book via CALLISTO PUBLISHER'S CLUB and this is my honest opinion.