Is your child's lunch safe?
No one would intentionally pack an unhealthy lunch for a child, but could you be unwittingly packing an unsafe lunch? According to Dr. Steve Abrams, member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition, recommendations for food safety are not being followed with lunches packed at home. Texas researchers found that 98% of the time, children's lunches were not as cold or hot as they should be according to recommendations.
What does this all mean?
Your child could come home sick from eating an unsafe, unhealthy meal that you packed. Some foods can climb to temperatures of 62 degrees by lunchtime - well above where they should be for safe consumption. What seems like a virus might just be unsafe food consumption.
What can you do?
According to research, it's important to keep food cold, even in a school lunch box. A study showed that 40% of the time, there was no ice pack in a child's lunch, leaving it to become too warm and grow bacteria. Even hot foods can be a problem because soups and other items must stay warm enough to keep them from growing bacteria.
Not paying attention to hot or cold can result in vomiting, pain, and diarrhea.
Here are some tips to help you prepare healthy lunches for your kids or yourself:
- Pack foods in the lunch box as soon as they are prepared - don't allow them to sit out on a counter. The sooner the lunch box is zipped or closed, the better.
- Keep the lunch box in the refrigerator overnight with the top open to allow the inside to be very cool when lunch is packed the next morning. Close it up as soon as it is removed from the refrigerator. (You can also fill it with a bag of ice to keep inside cold).
- Freeze foods when possible and pack them frozen. Water, juice, and even milk can be frozen and then placed in lunch boxes - set them out early in the morning so they have time to thaw before lunch, or just place them in the freezer for a couple of hours before packing.
- Freeze cheese, yogurt, and other foods. You can even freeze turkey or ham and then make a sandwich with the frozen meat.
- Refrigerate larger pieces of fruit to help keep the rest of the lunch box cool. Even though apples and oranges don't need to be cold, they will help keep temperature low in the box and by lunchtime, they are room temperature (assumes they are left whole).
- Always use an insulated lunch box to keep cold and heat where it needs to be - there are many types on the market that offer excellent results.
- Use ice packs and if they are small, use 2 or more. There are special frozen pouches for lunch boxes that are easily reused time after time. Keep several frozen and on hand.
- When it comes to hot, keep it as hot as possible. Pour boiling water in a thermos in the morning and leave it for about 3-5 minutes, empty the thermos, and then add hot soup. Replace the lid immediately.
- Keep cold and hot foods in separate lunch boxes if possible - a hot container of soup next to an icy cold drink is going to compromise the temperature of both foods.
Don't take chances with your child's lunch - or your lunch. Keep hot foods hot enough, and cold foods cold enough. You'll find that there may be fewer bouts of illness from children when you follow these simple rules. It's possible they're bring home symptoms of unsafe food instead of actually catching a 'bug' from a classmate.
~Facts and information taken from CNN Health News.
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