Health & Medicine - Posted by Tim Green-U. Texas on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 14:30 - 2 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Kids’ bag lunches don’t pass cool test
In order to protect children from food-borne illnesses, parents and school personnel should keep bagged lunches below 40 degrees Fahrenheit for cold foods and above 140 degrees for hot foods. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — More than 90 percent of sack lunches prepared at home and sent with children to preschool are kept at unsafe temperatures.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
A new study, published online in the journal Pediatrics, says too many lunches are stored in the “danger zone” between 40 and 140 degrees. The best storage temperature is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit for cold foods and above 140 degrees for hot foods.
“Parents need to be aware of how important the storage temperature is for foods they pack for their young children,” says lead author Fawaz Almansour, a graduate student of nutritional science at University of Texas at Austin.
Researchers collected data on sack lunches from more than 700 preschoolers at nine Texas child care centers. The lunches were measured with noncontact temperature guns one and one-half hours before the food was served.
Results showed that 39 percent had no supplemental ice packs—and even including lunches with ice packs, 88 percent were at room temperature. Less than 2 percent of lunches with perishable items were found to be in a safe temperature zone, while more than 90 percent (even with multiple ice packs) were kept at unsafe temperatures.
Perishable items studied included meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Prepackaged foods produced by manufacturers were not included in the study.
“The simple addition of one extra icepack could have prevented many of the perishable items in lunches from reaching the danger zone,” according to the study. The addition of two or more icepacks in lunches could help prevent food-borne illness in children.
More news from University of Texas at Austin: www.utexas.edu/news/
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2 Comments
Dunemi
Darrin Joy
The study objective from the paper is “To measure the temperatures of foods in sack lunches of preschool-aged children before consumption at child care centers.” This is a publishable study? It’s useless. So what if lunches are stored at temperatures somehow defined as unsafe? The real question is did anyone get sick as a result of the food storage conditions?
Everyone is so freaked out over germs. Antibacterial hand soap. Antibacterial and even antiviral tissues. Ultra-purified water. Don’t touch anything or, sweet lord, any person. Criminy. How did humanity ever get by before all this sterility?
It seems like a leap to conclude that so-called “unsafe” temperatures resulted in more child sickness. I would be willing to bet $5! that there was no appreciable increase in child sickness as a result of lunches being stored for a couple of hours at room temperature. I’ll even go one step further and propose that there might be a decrease in child sickness as a result of these so-called unsafe conditions. Why? because I think a daily influx of bacteria is good for you, and strengthens the immune system overall. Of course, I’m talking about normal lunches packed with the expectation of sitting around for a couple of hours, which is what parents expect. Nobody is packing their kids lunches with raw pork or seafood salad, I hope.