LunchBots Thermal 16 oz. All Stainless Steel Interior - Insulated Food Container Stays Warm for up to 5 Hours or Cold for 10 Hours - Leak Proof Soup Jar for Portable Convenience - Lime Green

After years of having access to a microwave at lunchtime at her tiny first school, my daughter (a picky eater, when it comes to lunch... she HATES sandwiches) is now in a school that has "regular" lunch- no way to heat stuff up. After a week of her not eating the sandwiches we packed, I decided to find something that might keep warm foods fresh and fairly warm until lunch. We ordered this, and it works great. We send everything from nuggets to pasta to veggies to different finger-foods to soup and it keeps it all warm and "fresh" (meaning the food doesn't get overly soggy or chewy from being warm and then sitting too long in an enclosed environment). It also does well with keeping foods cool.Of course, there's nothing that keeps foods PIPING hot or ice-cold outside a giant cooler packed with cold/hot packs, but this does a good job. It's sized small enough to fit into a lunch pack, but large enough to fit a good amount of food (including a warm sandwich - grilled cheese- cut into triangles). You could even put a few small containers inside with different foods- nuggets and veggies, different fruits, etc.The only drawbacks are the weight- this is a fairly heavy little container- and the fact is it NOT machine-washable or microwaveable. But the fact that my daughter is eating her lunch, and HAPPY with it, and able to pack it on her own (which she prefers to do...) makes life a zillion times easier.If you need to find a way to get temperature sensitive foods to school (or the office, or the job site, or when traveling, etc.), I can't recommend this container enough. I know the price is a bit steep, but I think it's really worth it.

My son decided that he wanted to start taking soup or mac 'n cheese to lunch at school every day. I searched for a container to keep the food hot until lunchtime and this one fits the bill nicely. The opening is large, like a bowl, so that he can eat right from the container without having to put the food into a separate bowl. It is a good size for my son for lunch at 16oz. I normally fill the container about 6:45am and my son says the food is still hot at lunch about 5 hours later. I do preheat the container with boiling water, per the instructions. Also, the outside of the container does not get too hot to hold.As other reviewers have said, the lid can get stuck if you overtighten it. I had this happen one time. From the story I heard, i sounded like every boy in my son's 5th grade class and a couple of teachers tried to unscrew the lid with no luck. My son had to figure out a different plan for lunch that day. I contacted LunchBots and they told me to boil about 3" of water on the stove and hold the container into the boiling water lid side down so that just the lid is in the water for 45 seconds. Then, pull it out and the lid should come off easily. It worked like a charm. I am now very careful not to tighten the lid. I just tighten it until I just start to feel resistance, not all the way. I have never had it leak or get stuck when barely tightened.Overall, I am very pleased with the purchase and would buy another one.

I purchased 2 of these bowls, and they are nowhere near worth what they cost. The idea is great - a wide mouth bowl that keeps your food hot and has a secure lid. Well, it nails 2 of those things, but misses the "keeps food hot" part completely.At first we thought maybe the nanny wasn't preheating the bowl enough before putting the food in, or wasn't heating the food up enough. The kids didn't want to use the bowls because their food wasn't hot at lunch.Finally my wife decided to try it out. She preheated the bowl with boiling water for several minutes while she heated up the food. She dumped the boiling water and replaced it with the food, closing the lid tight immediately afterward.The food didn't stay hot (or even warm) until lunch.Sorry folks - I think I got taken advantage of on this purchase. Seemed like it filled a great product niche, and I was willing to pay up for the value it claimed to provide. Alas, I can get this kind of value at the dollar store for a couple of bucks.Save your money - these just don't work. Use Tupperware instead.

I've only used this sparingly for 6 months (roughly once a week) and the inside component of the cover fell out. The glue that seals it with the cap didnt hold up. It's very disappointing for a $35 thermos. I will be looking for a replacement elsewhere.

So the body's not bad, the shape is good, so you can eat out of it more effectively than most such jars, but the top somehow doesn't hold the heat in in the way that the sidewalls do. Right after filling it or even when just filling it with hot water to pre-heat, you can put your hand on the lid and feel a lot of heat radiating up and through. If they could do a better job trapping the heat in the lid it would probably keep the food warm a lot longer. My son (almost 5) reports that his lunch wasn't hot in this, while we've had better luck with other vacuum-insulated jars. Apart from that it seems reasonably well made etc.. We will keep using it for now.Considering trying putting a layer of foil on top of the food inside the container to see whether that improves performance.