List Price: $24.99
Sale Price: $19.88
Today's Bonus: 20% Off
UPDATE (7/25/12): One of the commenters posted a link where you can buy extra food containers for $5 off the crockpot website. Sweet!
Pros:
* It looks cool. It made a couple of my co-workers "ooh" and "aah".
* It is compact, light, and easy to carry.
* It warms food great as long as you remember to plug it in! On average, it warmed my food to comfortable eating temperature within 1 ½ hours. This has included all kinds of foods from basic pureed soup to liver and onions. (I like liver).
* There is no smell from the food until you take the lid off to eat.
* The inner bowl cools quickly. I unplug the warmer, leave the inner container in the warmer while I eat so I don't have to mess with how to remove a hot metal bowl. By the time I finish eating my lunch, the inner bowl is cool enough at the top for me to remove it.
* I like the fact that I don't have to use the work microwave. It saves me time because I used to take a Lysol wipe to the office kitchen counter and a soapy paper towel to the microwave before using it. My office has a high population of folks who bring their own lunch (maybe around 70), which is great for budgets, but not so great when you get skeeved out over the residual gunk that was all over the microwave over the course of the week. With this little warmer, I put my food in the container, and plug it in and it's done. I rinse out the container at work, but it goes in the dishwasher at home. I save 5 to 10 minutes of pre-cleaning the office kitchen space, and I don't have to wait until it's past the "lunch rush".
Cons:
* It would be great if you could buy extra containers for it. I could see myself packing a whole week's worth of containers on Sunday night. There are also some days when I work past dinner, and it would be nice to be able to bring food in a second container. I did buy a second warmer, but I'd rather pay half the price and get extra inner containers.
* Don't heat spinach in it. Turns out bitter.
Other information:
* The lid on the inner container usually pops up slightly after 10 minutes of warming. The instructions did note this might happen and to not try to put the lid back on.
Based on a couple of other reviews stating concerns about bacteria and food safety, I decided to do a little experiment. I put tap water in the inner container and tested the temperature of water every hour for three hours. I also decided to test the temperature of actual food, again testing the temperature every hour for 3 hours. I used a Thermapen Instant Read digital thermometer to measure the temperatures. The results are in the table below. According to the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) website, precooked foods need to be reheated to 165 °F when using a microwave. The FDA website states that hot foods at picnics should be kept at 140 °F. As you can see from the results I got, the water temperature surpassed the 165°F within an hour. The food surpassed the 140°F within 2 hours, and was just under 165 °F at about the 3 hour mark.
Time ----Temperature Water ----Temperature Food
9:45 am ---- 67.4°F ---------- 36 °F
10:47 am ---168.5°F ---------126.2 °F
11:45 am ---170 °F ---------145.1 °F
12:50 pm ---170.8°F ---------164.9 °F
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it's exactly as the other reviewers said...if you're a cubicle dweller and hate hassling with lines at the office microwave, this gadget is for you. It only re-warms food (so no cooking any raw meat here), so if you plug it in when you get in the office in the morning, you'll have a hot lunch waiting for you at lunchtime. And there's absolutely no food cooking smell, so your cubicle neighbors don't know you're cooking lunch. The container seals in all food cooking smells until you open up the crock, at which point, your co-workers will know you're enjoying your lunch. The color isn't exactly as it appears on the photo..on the pix, the red color appears to be crimson/burgundy but it's exactly as described standard red/white (like the Target bulls-eye logo).Best Deals for Crock-Pot SCCPLC200-G 20-Ounce Lunch Crock Food Warmer
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program As you can see from the product image above, this portable, low-power Crock-Pot Food Warmer comes with a twisting outer lid and a short carry-handle. The enclosed inner bowl is removable, about 5 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep, comes with its own push-down / pull-up lid, made of stainless steel, and can hold as much as 20 ounce of cooked meals. The power cord is about 2.5 feet long, and wraps around the cord wrap on the base.The product is meant for warming cooked food only, and it does this slowly using non-adjustable low-power. The idea is that if you don't have access or don't want to use the office microwave -and don't mind a comparatively longer "wait" time (minimum of 1 hour for most foods, I would say) - for heating up your lunches, this appliance might be an option. When you get to work, for example, you could plug in the appliance right away, so that by lunch time, you'll have a hot meal ready to eat. For convenience, you can leave the warming base at work, and travel back and forth from home and office with the removable food container and lid only (but see caveat below).
Although the product heats up food just fine as is, you should know that the appliance does not have an on/off switch, so you're responsible for plugging and unplugging it if you can't work around this problem by plugging the warmer to a power strip that you can turn on and off (but then again, the warmer's relatively short power cord could be a problem for some). When your food is ready, you most likely have to eat it with the food container still on the warming base, because the container would likely be too hot to touch. This was sometimes a negative for me.
The food container's push-down / pull-up lid does not provide a really tight cover, so when you're transporting foods with liquids or sauces, make sure you keep the container in a secure, upright position. Finally, a food container that can also double as a microwaveable container can be a real life-saver when one is in a pinch for time and happens to have access to a microwave!
Honest reviews on Crock-Pot SCCPLC200-G 20-Ounce Lunch Crock Food Warmer
I'm a technician and work out of my van. i plug this little guy into a power inverter in my van and off i go. I used to have to mess around every morning with a food jar if i wanted a hot home made meal. Boil the water. Pour the hot water into the food jar and let sit for 15 minutes. Microwave food and then pour out the water and try to spoon in the food through the narrow neck. Now i just dump my leftovers into the food container, take it outside and plug it in. around lunch time my food is piping hot.Pros:
Save money by bringing food to work instead of eating out.
Heats food throughout the day, unlike the food jar where it's hot in the morning and cooler at lunch.
NO MICROWAVED FOOD TASTE! Heats slowly and evenly without making food chewy or tough.
Cons:
Cheeses and cream sauces tend to separate.
Food can leak out if it turns over.
Can't take a meal with separate sides. Nit Picky i guess.
I honestly couldn't love this thing more. I use it almost every day. I found a nice little collapsible spork meant for camping that fits between the outer lid and the inner. Fantastic product you will not regret buying. EVER.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Crock-Pot SCCPLC200-G 20-Ounce Lunch Crock Food Warmer
Received this as a gift from my wife for Christmas. Since I'm a cube dweller, she figured this would be a fun and functional little desk accessory, and she was right! I've only used it once so far but it worked exactly as advertised last night's leftover casserole was perfectly heated by lunchtime. The only knock I have on it so far is that it lacks an on/off switch, and therefore has to be plugged in/unplugged for use, which I can see being relatively inconvenient if you're going to use the crock more than occasionally.
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