Glass wins. Ceramic runs a close second.

For a lunch box that won’t hold onto tomato stains or curry smells, go with glass — it’s non-porous and basically impossible to stain.

Plastic stains because polypropylene, the usual lunch-box plastic, is slightly porous. Hot turmeric, tomato pigment, and oil-based curry seep into the surface and stay there. Wash it all you want; that orange tint is not coming out.

Glass has nothing to soak into. Rinse it and it’s clean, even after a week of leftover butter chicken. Downside: it’s heavy, it can break, and some offices or schools don’t allow it. If that’s your situation, tempered glass still has the same stain resistance — the fragility is the only real catch.

Ceramic-coated interiors are the compromise. A good ceramic non-stick layer over steel resists staining almost as well as glass. But the coating is only as good as its quality. Cheap ones chip within months, and a chipped coating lets stains in and flakes bits into your food. The better-name-brand ceramic boxes hold up for years, but you’re paying for that.

If I had to pick: glass for home and office, a solid ceramic-coated steel box if you need shatterproof. Just don’t trust plastic with anything orange. Curry is delicious; a stained box is not.