Sounds like a bento box with finger foods might be the ticket. The individually wrapped wet wipes for your hands might come in handy too.

JustBento.com is a great resource.

Definitely bring some loud, crunchy chip-like food wrapped in cellophane... and lots of oniony stuff. :)

(I hated the people in my classes who did that) - I think Faith's ideas/links are great. I think a thermos of (non-chunky) soup that you can drink would be nice on a cool day, too.

Regarding soup: Klean Kanteen's insulated thermoses keep contents warm really well.

Also, I like making sandwiches on dinner rolls-- they can easily be held in one hand, plus you can have multiple kinds of sandwiches in one day.

For fruit, I like bananas (the ultimate portable food) and dried fruit (mangoes, apricots, etc.).

It doesn't sound like you go to school too late in the day so as long as you have a decent breakfast you should be able to get by with a smaller lunch. I'd go with some fruit. Delicious, light, refreshing, and easily portable. Bananas, apples, plums, etc. Some simple sandwiches work as well.

I was wondering the same thing since Mondays and Wednesdays I have class back to back from 2 pm to 8:30 pm. I was thinking PB&J or cucumber sandwiches cut into triangles or mixed fruit in a baggie.

My suggestions...

1. Soup in a thermos- something that's easily "drinkabke" works best. You can invest in a hot pot and make it yourself, buy it at the dining hall or get the canned variety.

2. Easy to eat, no fuss sandwiches. The dinner roll idea is a good one, that way it's a nice self contained sandwich unit. I frequently ate PB&J or cream cheese sandwiches in my classes.

3. Oatmeal. I know it's not a typical lunch food but it can be packed in a thermos, sprinkled with fruit, eaten with little fuss and has good nutritional value.

4. Chef Boyardee, Spaghettio’s, Easy Mac or some other canned pasta. (You're in college so I assume you don't have the means to make your own) This can easily be warmed in a microwave prior to class, put into a thermos and eaten with minimal fuss.

5. If you have access to a kitchen, I recommend a savory hand pie or two. They pack all the yummy goodness of a full meal into a self enclosed, hand held, pocket pie. Here's a good recipe: http://www.shutterbean.com/savory-chicken-pocket-pies/ Make them in advance, warm a few up before class, pack them into an insulating container and enjoy mid class.

Also, invest in a decent spork. You can use it to eat a myriad of things and you’ll be the envy of your spork-less friends.

Just because you have no fridge doesnt mean you can't do things that must be kept cold. Get a few good icepack, and they will protect your food for a good long time in an insulated lunch box.

Quiche is a great option - there are endless numbers of fillings and you wont get bored. Using store bought poie crust or puff pastry makes them ridiculously easy.

I will fifth the soup in a thermos option. It will stay hot even longer if you preheat your thermos. Fill yout thermos with hot water to warm it up, pour it out after letting it sit for 30 seconds, then pour in your hot soup.

Trail mix is a good option for sustanance if you really dont want to cook in the morning. Just throw some premade GORP in a baggie from a big container thats already mixed and you should be set :).

I feel you Libby! It's only been 2 years since I graduated so it feels just like yesterday. I was a music major so my Tuesdays and Thursdays for 3 years went from 9am-6pm straight. So I was always known by friends as constantly snacking.

Fruit's great, something like apples either sliced or whole or a banana? Or oranges and tangerines? But pre-peel those at home. Granola bars or cliff bars. Dry cereal. Sandwiches (I packed many PB&J's). Soup packed in a thermos. Raw veggies like celery sticks and baby carrots. Chinese crackers. Trail Mix. Dried fruit. Trader Joe's is a great place to find good snacks and they sell great trail mixes.

The key to this is to wake up a little earlier in the morning and give yourself enough time to pack yourself a lunch. Invest in cheap tupperware to fill with things like peanut butter or hummus for carrot/celery dip. Ziploc bags are great to have too. Come lunchtime you'll thank yourself. Hope this helps!

I once had the opposite dilemma - the dining hall closed at 6 but I had a class from 6-8! I ended up getting an insulated lunch bag and microwaving the meal when I got home.

But for your situation, I'd say that anything that needs to be refrigerated should be fine in an insulated bag for a couple of hours, especially with an ice pack. Yogurt's always good (and quiet!) I always pack some fruit and nuts to mix in to make it more substantial.

If you're not a vegetarian, beef jerky and dried fruit could get you through to the end of class and then you could eat at leisure.

Wow, I have classes from 8 until 2 most days as well and I was just stressing out about this too! Such a small world haha. I really like the idea of mini sandwiches, one suggestion would be to make two different ones using one slice of bread for each, just for variety.

Cold bean and grain salads would probably keep well (think tabouli, etc.) as would nuts, nut butters, vegetable sticks and hummus, and portable fruits (grapes, apples, bananas, etc.).

I'm not a huge fan of drinking my calories, so smoothies and soups don't work well (or hold me over very well) but they are easy to eat and worth a try if you get a nice thermos that can handle dairy.

I'd suggest sandwiches and wraps. If you avoid them the other four days a week you probably won't get tired of them... just switch up the fillings! Like:
-pb&j
-Greek salad in pita bread: hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, etc.
-ceasar salad in a wrap
-turkey & havarti or other tasty cheese with sprouts, tomatoes, etc.
-pepper jack cheese, salsa, lettuce, veggies, chicken breast in a tortilla
-ham &swiss

Soup in a thermos gets my vote. And "drinking" is less of a distraction to your class mates than unpacking a typical lunch.

A distraction to your classmates? Pbbbt, as long as it's nothing noisy or smelly, how are you distracting them? I used to have swim practice until half an hour before school when I was in high school, so people got used to seeing me eat a huge breakfast during my first class. Deal with it, I was up at 5:00 AM and just swam eight kilometres, lol.

I have been in this situation several times over the past 7 years of my post-highschool education (/stabs self in eye). I have found that if you are going to eat in class over a period of time (say, a few months), it's important to find a routine that you can keep up, and that meets your health standards. Cause fries and pizza are fast, cheap, hot and satisfying.... you need a serious solution to compete with that!
I picked a buddy and we'd each make a big batch of healthy vegan soup, and trade half of it. This meant we each had two kinds of soup to enjoy throughout the week. I'd pack that up in a thermos, bring some Wasa crackers (or some similar whole grain and seed flat bread that travels well) with nut or bean spread, some fruit, and a cold grain/ bean/ veg salad. If it was going to be an 8 hour day, I'd pack a pb&j, or have cold dinner leftovers for breakfast. Cold food really doesn't smell as much as hot food does, and is less likely to bother folks around you. Good luck, and happy schooling!

Tiamat_The_Red, there's really good tofu jerky out there that would suffice as well. :)

In addition to the traditional sandwich fillings, almost anything you would eat with a fork (salads, bean salads, leftovers chopped into small pieces etc) can be rolled up in a wrap, pita or tortilla and then converted into finger foods by cutting into bite-size portions. To keep them from unrolling, you can either pack the pieces tight together bento-style or secure them with a toothpick.

As people above have said, do all the prep ahead of time (including peeling and cutting up fruit, veggies, cheese and/or removing them from packaging) so you're not fiddling with that in class.

Test your container for leaks, very important in a school bag! Fill it with water and shake it around over the sink. The kind of containers with a seal and locking mechanism (Lock n' Lock or knockoffs) are best, and double secure anything really problematic inside a ziploc bag.

If you drink juice, milk or water you can put the container in the freezer the night before and that can be your icepack also.

Keeping a granola bar or protein-based canned drink in a pocket in your pack is good insurance for days when you are too rushed to prepare lunch.

I have class from 9-5 straight through most days, so I know how this is. I choose things like granola bars and fruit. Or, a lot of times, I stick one of those reusable ice packs in the front pocket of my book bag along with things like cold sandwiches, salad, yogurt, basically anything you don't need hot.

A great take-along salad is a Beet And Carrot Salad With Sesame Seeds by Nicole Spiridakis that I found on NPR's Kitchen Window.

Makes 1 serving

2 carrots, peeled
1 medium raw beet, peeled
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Grate the carrots and beet into a medium-sized bowl. Add the lemon juice and olive oil and stir well to mix and coat. Add the sesame seeds. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I'm going through this as well, so I feel your pain.

Honestly, I get into a turkey sandwich-baby carrots-oatmeal cookies rut so i've been trying to switch it up.

Lately I've been making chili and drinking it out of a thermos. It's really not as hard as I anticipated it would be. (The first day I brought a spoon and just ended up drinking it. A lot easier) I just make sure the lid is super tight, give it a shake so everything is homogenized, and throw in some chives and sour cream that I kept in a little tiny tupperware container. It's been so hot I've been eating it cold. Pretty darn tasty, actually.

Bagels and cream cheese are always great. Those little tiny packs of portable cream cheese plus some salmon make a very filling lunch.

I'm also a voracious snacker, and am always grabbing at something or another to munch on. My backpack consists of books and about 10 different snacks at any time, so that helps too.

A friend of mine makes a protein shake mixed with those instant breakfast packet things and puts it in a thermos to sip during the day.Usually it's just some milk, big scoop of whey protein, some strawberries, (Maybe some almond butter..?) an instant breakfast and a lot of ice. She snacks and eats sparingly because of her schedule, but that makes sure she's at least getting her protein and calories in during the day. It seems to help her? Something you might be interested in trying out.

I'm sure I'll think of more. I'm always hungry so I'll keep thinking on it as I'm always eating on the go it seems.

I've had the same problem, but I found that I could rush to my second class and then have 6+ minutes left to eat whatever needed a fork. So I'd eat my salad first and fast, then have trail mix/granola bar/fruit, whatever, discretely during the first few minutes of class.

I supposed if your campus is bigger than two buildings that might not be an option though. :)

What I love for trail mix is to have a variety of nuts, dried fruit, cereal, and seeds on hand, then mix up whatever combo sounds good that morning. One way to keep from getting tired of it so fast.

Also, if you take the time to wash/peel/chop whatever produce will keep, all at once on the weekend, you're less likely to talk yourself out of packing a lunch in the morning.

Great ideas, I hope to use some next semester. Right now I have an hour before my afternoon class, thank god....the food at the campus is really expensive.

I have a similar problem, I'm in class from 9am - 7pm on Monday's. I've found that packing my lunch the night before makes my mornings run a lot smoother and I don't have to get up super early. I do a smoothie in the morning that I can drink on the bus and then pack things like fruit leathers, granola bars, veggies, fruit, ect. I tried to find things that I could snack on walking across campus as well as in my class so I opted for finger foods. Then I pick one of my mid afternoon classes (with a prof that was okay with food) to eat a sandwich in class.

Great smoothie recipe (especially if you like reese's peanut butter cups!):

2 cups ice
1 cup milk
1/3 cup of Carnation Instant Breakfast in Chocolate (this is their standard serving size)
1 big spoonful of peanut butter
1/2 a banana

Mix and enjoy! It gives you great protein and all your daily vitamins and I've found I don't get hungry till around 1pm or later!

HOpe this helps!