Listeria for lunch? - CareforKids.com.au ®

Listeria for lunch?
How safe is your child's lunchbox?

This time of year as it’s heating up, we're quite happy to send our children off to school with packed lunches in the standard plastic boxes… or an insulated lunch pack, but what does that mean in terms of how much bacteria might be in your child’s sandwich by the time it's lunchtime?

Every day millions of Australian adults and children happily go off to work and school with their trusty lunchbox – either in a plastic box, cooler bag or box variety. But by the time those ham salad sandwiches or cheese sticks are consumed, just how safe are they?

According to Food Standards Australia & New Zealand (FSANZ), it is estimated that there are over four million cases of food borne illness every year in Australia. Contamination can occur for a number of different reasons but one key cause of bacteria growth in food is temperature. Most mesophiles which include bacteria such as Listeria and e coli grow at temperatures between 5°C and 63°C, commonly referred to as the growth or 'danger' zone. They have an optimum temperature for growth of about 37°C. Listeria bacteria will grow very slowly below 5°C, but they start to multiply more rapidly as the temperature rises above that level.

Foods that are most affected by bacteria such as e coli and listeria are dairy products, meat and fish. Thought that doesn't mean you can't ever give them to your children for lunch.

Make your child's lunch the night before and store in the fridge until school time. This should keep food and drink colder for longer.
Keep an iced drink bottle or cooler block in the lunch box or cooler bag to keep the temperature down. This is best put in a plastic pouch to stop food getting wet.
Never re-use or put un-eaten food back in the fridge after school. As soon as it comes home, throw it in the bin.
Check out where your child's lunch is being kept before lunchtime – lunchboxes should be stored in a cool cupboard if possible, away from windows, heaters and other natural heat sources.
Make sure your child's packed lunch box is of the cooler variety. Even standard cooler boxes don’t keep food cold the entire day.
Fridge-To-Go cooler bags (see competition) and containers have a special 8 hour cooling technology that ensures food stays cool and bacteria free all day. Room temperature food and drink placed inside a fully recharged Fridge-to-go® will be chilled to under 4°C in less than two hours - working just like a home refrigerator would and sometimes outperforming it – and will keep food and drink below that level for at least five hours.