School lunches

You may pack a tasty, nutritious lunch for your kids, but beware. The meal can change a lot by lunchtime. Researchers test hundreds of bagged lunches with and without ice packs. The results may surprise you.

A team of Texas researchers took the temperature of kids’ sack lunches. They included 235 preschoolers who’d brought their own lunch to daycare. Those meals contained perishable items like meat, dairy, and vegetables. The researchers checked the items an hour and a half before the children ate.

Parents put an ice pack in with about 60 percent of the lunches. Nevertheless, fewer than 2 percent of the perishable items were at a safe temperature. Even using multiple ice packs, or keeping the lunch in the refrigerator at preschool, seldom kept items cold enough.

Government food-safety experts recommend not only tossing in a frozen gel pack, but also using an insulated lunch box to help keep perishable foods safe. Another option is to send foods that stay safe even when they’re not cold – including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, whole fruits and vegetables, canned fish, and crackers.