Thanks everyone! Annie, I looked at Stanley's site and found many different sizes to choose from. Not sure about shipping outside the US though. Amazon.com won't do it and Amazon.ca only carries things that I don't care for. None of the retail/hardware stores listed on Stanley's homepage are available in Canada, but Wal-Mart. Of course, the Wal-Mart stores here in Canada are very different than the ones in the US. AM, I completely agree with you about the fact that Wal-Mart stores don't carry high quality stuff especially the ones in Canada. Anyway, after searching for an hour I finally found one local store: Home Hardware, that carries Stanley Thermal bottles. They are small, 1-L and 24 Oz are all they have. Maybe the 1-liter will work. Compare to what he eats right now (basically nothing), 1-liter of hot food will seem like a huge meal to him. Mara, I don't believe we have Chick-Fil-A in Canada, at least not in our city. Even if we did DH probably wouldn't bother to go look for Chick-Fil-A for a meal. A chocolate bar from the vending machine and a cup of coffee at the office lobby would be much easier to him. Jessica, I could never get angry with people who try to help me. I will consider the Bento box idea once the weather is less brutal. Definitely would try sushi because DH loves sushi. A salad is good too as long as the box has lot of compartment so the greens, protein, and dressing won't mix until he's ready to eat. Will off to Home Hardware next week to see if I can find the Stanley bottle. They have it listed on a national site doesn't always mean they have it in a certain store. Thanks again, everyone! I will continue to try. Al

I think everything has some potential to harm us (natural or unnatural)...what they generally don't tell you is that most of the time, you have to use mass quantities of the substance (whatever that is) to cause the serious long-term harm that it's capable of (if that makes any sense). I "encountered" splenda awhile back, when a friend who was trying to cut sugar found it. I can't "do" aspartamine (I feel sick to my stomach less than 10 min after ingesting it), but splenda didn't seem to have that effect, so I do use it in moderation (two packets in my breakfast shakes every morning), though lately I've been a bit sick to my stomach, so I might quit using it for a few days and see if that's the cause. And I'll occasionally add it to cooking, though anything baked gets real sugar. I tend to be of the mind that a little real sugar won't hurt you, as long as it's kept to a "little". ;-) DF is doing Atkins...he's drinking one diet soda with splenda per day, and I made him some chai tea with one packet last night, but otherwise, he's not had the need for it at all on Atkins - I haven't made anything that needs "sweetening", really. Other than that, I think the smartest thing we can do is learn to like things a little less sweet. I learned to like my tea black, and just got used to eating foods that weren't as sweet (or were naturally sweet). So I really don't have much of a need for sweeteners - I could probably even get used to drinking my shakes without, if I had the desire to. :-)

Lots of good ideas for me to agonize over. Thanks. I happened to be at a center with a World Market today, so I checked out their selection. I didn't see one tagged as 'Jane', but I picked one up that seemed like it could work (I think the nalgene will fit and the pocket on the opposite side could hold things outside a cold zone). When they rang it up...it said Blue Jane. :) I'll give it a go tomorrow. I also got some Lunch Blox at Costco. It was a set with two salad and one sandwich, I think. Which is pretty good for what I take. I wasn't sure I was going to keep them, but they were a pretty good deal for what you get. Thanks.

I'm really not surprised. This is how many people will find TJ to be when they give an unbiased look at it. It's good for some and bad for others as I've said in the other threads. I gotta chuckle at those posts saying a store was dirty one time so they condemn the entire chain! It's hardly fair to condemn an entire chain for a bad experience or two in one store. Every store is going to be dirty at some time or another, it's going to depend on the management as to how often it's that way. I've been to clean Aldi (and BTW, there's no "s" in the name, it's short for Albrecht Distributing) stores and dirty ones. I've had good experiences and bad experiences in most every chain. It's the way it is. Aldi and Trader Joe have the same basic concept and not surprising since they're both owned by the Albrechts family. Aldi was started from one family owned grocery store and two brothers grew it to an international success, then split up when they couldn't agree whether to sell cigarettes. They divided up the world but still worked together for distribution and acquisition benefits. TJ is part of the one brother's Trust. Their joint concept was and is to keep costs low, then sell high volume of a limited number of items. They sell very few brand-name items, usually only if they get a great deal on them, otherwise it's far cheaper to sell your own brand name. They also do limited advertising. TJ is essentially the yuppie version of Aldi. Neither will generally serve all your shopping needs unless perhaps you only eat tv dinners. It's really curious how some people get SO defensive over a store of all things! Or how some can actually worship a store! I'm reminded of when "grouchy" went nuts in another thread about a big chain... LOL Geez people, it's a STORE fer cryin out loud!