Parent to Parent: Making the Grade: Lunchbox safety

This mom has four kids with four different tastes. So this Braintree mom gets an early start on packing their lunch. But by giving her kids what they want, could she be sacrificing safety? Sandwiches left inside warms lockers or cubbies could turn into breeding grounds for bacteria, and that could lead to food poisoning.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
"Often times they think it's the stomach bug or the stomach flu, something that is going around where it very well could have been from something they ate."
 
7News put these four lunches to the temperature test:
Lunch #1: A tuna sandwich with a starting temperature of 66 degrees.
Lunch #2: A turkey sandwich with mayo, starting temperature 49 degrees.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
Anytime it goes above 41 degrees the bacteria is starting to grow, so the sandwiches even after just preparing them they're already starting to grow bacteria
 
Lunch #3: Yogurt, starting at a cool 40 degrees.
 
And lunch #4: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a high of 71 degrees.
 
The kids would usually head out the door with those bagged lunches, but we wanted to test the temperatures so we hung the lunches here to try to recreate the same conditions as school.
 
Arlene Boyle, mom
"When you pack it in the morning and it looks good, you just kind of assume by the time they eat lunch it looks that good."
 
Four hours later it's lunch time and time to do a temperature check.
 
Lunch #1: That tuna sandwich stayed the same, 66 degrees, but remember it was already too warm to begin with. Bacteria starts to grow above 41 degrees.
 
Lunch #2: A turkey sandwich with mayo went up 15 degrees.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
"Already it's about up to 64 degrees!"
 
Lunch #3: Yogurt rose even higher, more than 20 degrees.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
"Now, we are getting already 61 on the yogurt."
 
In all three of these lunches the bacteria is creeping up closer to the danger zone.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
"Anywhere between 70 and 125 is known as the extreme temperature danger zone. So that is where bacteria is really going to be multiplying."
 
So for parents who are packing it up, here's what you can do to keep it cool. Wrap perishables like sandwiches and yogurts with ice packs and use a thermal lunch box. Or pack a lunch that can take the heat like lunch #4. Experts say peanut butter and jelly can handle high temperatures.
 
Cynthia Judd, Berger Food Safety
"It's not a potentially hazardous food, so we're really not worried about bacteria growth."
 
Kim Khazei, 7News
And another rule of thumb, the cooler something starts out the better. So before you make the sandwiches put ingredients like bread and even tuna cans inside the fridge. This way your kids eat a safe lunch instead of one that could make them sick.

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