Brown Bag Blues: Why Your Kid’s Lunch Needs More Than Paper

(KNSI) — Bringing lunch from home is often called “brown bagging it,” but food safety experts say a brown paper bag is not ideal for a child to take their lunch to school.

Unless it contains completely nonperishable items such as apples, peanut butter sandwiches, chips, and granola bars, a brown paper bag with a frozen gel pack is not enough to be sure food stays at a safe temperature. Food safety expert Meredeth Caruthers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture says to use a good, insulated lunch bag or box with a frozen cold source to take food from home. “The biggest concern is that those foods aren’t going to stay cold enough, and therefore bacteria that can cause foodborne illness are going to start multiplying, potentially by the time you go to eat your lunch. And then, if you eat your lunch with that bacteria on it that is starting to grow, you can potentially get sick, and that’s what we don’t want.”

With that as your starting point for packing, she says, “You can pretty much take anything for lunch. You just have to make sure you’re storing it properly until you’re ready to eat it.”

That means below below 40 degrees. Even if you’re bringing leftovers.

Using a frozen leftover as the cold source is also unwise. “When that food starts to thaw, those foods thaw from the outside in. The outer layers of that food, any any foodborne illness bacteria that might be present start to get exposed to that air temperature, and if it’s not below 40 degrees, that bacteria can start to multiply. They can multiply to a point of creating toxins that are then heat resistant, [and] won’t be killed by reheating. Or if your child is eating that frozen food cold, it won’t be good and could potentially get them sick.”

Another item to pack is hand sanitizer or hand wipes to be used before and after eating.

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