How do I keep my lunchboxes cold and questions of food safety are some of the most common questions I get asked. Lunchbox Studies also show one of the barriers parents identify to packing fresh food is how do they keep food safe during the day. So I thought I would share with you information about Lunchbox Food Safety you might find useful. This information has largely been sourced from The Food Safety Information Council website.
The Temperature Danger Zone
Food that is meant to be cold should be kept at below 5 degrees celsius because bacteria grows between temperatures of 5 and 60 degrees.
As a general rule, if this cold food is not kept at below 5 degrees celsius, then:
- it should be eaten within 2-4 hours of going above 5 degrees
- if it goes over 4 hours at above 5 degrees, the food should be thrown away.
Keeping Food Cold
Obviously, it is difficult and not practical to gauge the temperature of your child’s lunchbox at recess and lunchtime. The best you can do is take actions at home to keep the food as cold as possible before it goes to school. Here are some tips I have collated from the various state government food safety sites.
1. Pack lunch in an insulated cooler bag
An insulated cooler bag is a must, particularly in Summer in Australia, but you may have already found that not all insulated cooler bags are good at keeping food cold. When it comes to lunchbox tools (lunchboxes, cooler bags and drink bottles), I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for.
My advice to you is to think about your lunchbox tools, including the cooler bag as an investment. Pay more now to get good quality, and you won’t have to spend again for a couple of years.
When looking for a cooler bag, you should think about the number of hours between when you pack your lunchboxes to when your child will eat their lunch (not recess, their lunch). Your cooler bag must be able to keep the food cold for this amount of time. So if you pack lunchboxes at 7am and your child eats their lunch at 1pm, then your cooler bag must be able to maintain coldness for 6 hours.
Our personal choice for a cooler bag is the Fridge To Go Cooler Medium Bag. It uses a specially designed ice brick and fabric panels to ensure it stays cold for 8 hours at a minimum. You can also take other actions to help it stay colder for longer than that, such as putting the whole cooler bag in the freezer. We have personally tested the cooler bag by leaving it out in the direct sun and it still stays cold.
You can buy the Fridge To Go Cooler Bag from Little Toot’s Lunchbox or Little Bento World*
Of course, if you’ve got a different insulated cooler bag and you don’t want to reinvest in a Fridge To Go, my suggestion would be to include two ice bricks if you can. One underneath, one over the top (or at least having a frozen drink bottle on top – freeze the drink bottle half filled, then top up with water in the morning).
2. Keep food and cooler bag as cold as possible beforehand
You can help keep food fresh and minimise bacteria growth by keeping the food as cold as possible beforehand. You can do this by preparing lunchbox food in advance and storing in the fridge or making it fresh in the morning then popping it in the fridge before putting it in the school bag.
You may also wish to freeze your lunches and pop them straight into the lunchbox. This way they start out really cold. We do this with quite a few of our lunchbox options ourselves.
The one thing all the state food safety sites seem to say in common is that having something frozen in the lunchbox should be sufficient to keep the lunchbox food safe.
Depending on your cooler bag, you could also pop it in the fridge or freezer the night before. You will need to check the care instructions for your cooler bag to see if this is suitable for your bag.
3. Keep school bag out of direct sunlight
Ask your children to ensure their school bags out of direct sunlight. This may not be possible depending on your school and where your child’s classroom is positioned. When our daughter was in year 2, where her class hung their school bags was in direct sunlight. This was the year we found our Fridge To Go bags, and we were so relieved.
4. Preparing food safely
You can minimise the chance of bacteria and contamination of food by preparing it safely at home before sending it to school.
Food Safety Checklist
This is just a quick checklist I thought that might help you, but please remember to follow published food safety standards.
1. Wash hands
Always wash hands before assembling food.
2. Clean utensils
Always use clean utensils and chopping boards between using different foods (ie. meats to vegetables etc).
3. No raw meats
Ensure no raw meats come in contact with the work surface you are packing on.
4. Start with cold food
Pack food as much from a starting position of Cold or Below 0 as possible.
5. Ice brick and cooler bag
Always pack at least one frozen ice brick or drink of some sort in a cooler bag. Pack the ice brick closest to the food which are considered a potential risk.
6. Keep food as cold as possible
Keep lunchbox in fridge in cooler bag right up to the time they leave to go to school if possible.
7. Check the time
Check what time your child eats lunch. If there is more than 4 hours from the time it leaves the fridge at home to the time it’s eaten at school, depending on your location, you may wish to either freeze the food overnight for added protection, pack additional ice bricks or maybe also assess the school location where your child’s lunchbag is kept to determine if it’s out of direct sunlight.
Other reading / sources
You may also find this information useful
Product Review – Fridge To Go Cooler Bag – this is a product review I did on the Fridge To Go Cooler Bag.
Fridge and Freezer Food Safety – article from The Food Safety Information Council. Please pay particular attention to the section on Freeze and Defrost Safely.
* When you purchase through the links in this post from Little Toots Lunchbox or Little Bento World, you get the same great price, but we will get a small referral fee. This fee helps us stay on the road with our mission to Transform Children’s Health In Australia, and to keep providing free information and recipes. Your support by using these links is much appreciated.