Which lunch boxes keep foods at safe temperatures? ANSWER: Freezable lunch bags such as the Playtex Fridge-To-Go I know what you are thinking. "When I was a kid, I took a ham sandwich every day in a brown bag for lunch with no ice and I never got sick." I wish I could explain why that is but I can't. The fact is that perishable food sitting out at room temperature WILL GROW bacteria. If you are lucky, the bacteria will be good bacteria and will not make you sick. Sometimes, however, the food will contain bad bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, or listeria, and then people can get sick if the food sits at unsafe temperatures. 50% of healthy people carry the Staph bacteria on their skin, hair, nasal passages, and throats1 . Staph bacteria can grow in temperatures as low as 44.6°F1 and bacteria can double every 30 minutes! If you are going to the trouble to pack healthy lunches for your children to take to school, than you might as well pack them so the food stays at safe temperatures. According to the FDA, refrigerators should all be set below 40°F and perishable food should not stay at room temperature (or above 40°F ) for more than 2 hours. But does packing your child's lunch in an insulated bag with an ice block keep it at safe temperatures until lunch? I did an experiment to find out.Experimental Procedures First, I tested my meat thermometer in ice water and boiling water to make sure it was accurate. My thermometer read 32°F in the ice water and 212°F in the boiling water as it should. Next, I put 1 cup of milk into 4 small ziplock containers and took the temperatures. The milk started out at 36°F. The ice blocks that I used in these bags were Cool It Fit and Fresh Ice Packs. I put the lids on the milk and put one container of milk into each bag. I put one frozen ice block into each of the 2 lunch bags that needed them. I did not put ice blocks into the 2 freezer bags. Then I sealed the bags and left them on my kitchen countertop for the afternoon. I checked the temperatures at 4 hours and 6 hours. I did this experiment twice on 2 separate days. For the Marvel and the pink lunch boxes, I put the ice blocks NEXT TO the container of milk in the first experiment. In the second experiment, I put the container of milk directly ON TOP of the ice block. There was no difference in the two days of experiments for the The Pack It and the Playtex Fridge-to-go and they both performed equally well on both days. Results The Playtex Fridge-to-go bag and the PackIt Freezable Lunch Bag Conclusions The Playtex Fridge-To-Go The Playtex Fridge-To-Go bag is a bit smaller than the PackIt. The inside packing space of the Playtex Fridge-to-go is about 6 inches by 8 inches by 2.5 inches. It could hold a sandwich and a juice box and that is it. The inside packing space of the Pack It is about 7 inches by 4 inches by 7 inches. The PackIt is bigger and would fit a sandwich box, a drink, and a few other items. So, if you pack a drink, I'd go for the PackIt Freezable Lunch Bag There is also a fabulous new lunch box container called the Zak Designs Lunch box I also use these fabulous Reduce Waterweek Kids Waterbottles If you decide not to put the bottles in the dishwasher and need a good, sturdy bottle drying rack, I recommend this Mommy Genius Drying Rack Too many school children are not given the opportunity to wash hands before lunch. If you children are not given time to wash hands, consider packing a hand sanitizer in their lunch. But not just any hand sanitizer. If you are going to bother using a hand sanitizer, it ought to be one of the few that actually kills norovirus. Norovirus is the most common and terrible stomach virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. Most people HATE those illnesses, but most hand sanitizers don't kill it. The main reason to use a hand sanitizer is to protect you from stomach bugs like norovirus. (Colds are spread primarily through the air so hand sanitizer doesn't make a big difference in the number of colds you get. Stomach viruses are generally spread by putting dirty fingers in your mouth or on your food, so hand sanitizer can make a big difference.) Here are my two favorite hand sanitizers that have been tested and shown to kill norovirus. Zylast Antiseptic VIEWER COMMENTS
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