Think that turkey sandwich you packed for your kid’s lunch will be at a safe temperature — safe and sound from food-borne illness –when they sit down to eat it? Maybe not–a study finds that few sack lunches might be kept at proper temperatures until lunch time.
The study, released Monday in the journal Pediatrics, looked at temperatures of 705 lunches containing at least one perishable item belonging to 3- to 5-year-olds. Food was removed from containers and temperatures were measured by a temperature gun about an hour and a half before the lunches were served.
What researchers found wasn’t good: Only 1.6% of 1,361 perishable items were found to be in a safe temperature range. Broken down, 97.4% of meats, 99% of dairy items and 95.8% of vegetables weren’t at an acceptable temperature.
About 45% of the lunches had one ice pack and about 39% had no ice packs. Even having an ice pack didn’t guarantee the food would be well chilled. Among 618 perishable items that contained one pack, only 14 of them were at an acceptable temperature range. Having two to four ice packs sometimes wasn’t enough–8.2% of the 61 items with multiple packs were in a safe zone.
https://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-sack-lunch-safety-20110808,0,2929697.story
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