sending "hot" lunch to school and food safety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food service rules are ultra-conservative because of liability concerns, the risk that you’re feeding immunocompromised people, and the fact that if you’re making a metric ton of food every day the chances of a .01% event are much higher than if you’re making one meal.

Also, add in the fact that you are talking about ultra-processed foods like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.

I have no idea how some of you people step out of the house each morning, you're so cautious.

Correct. In my state you cannot even sell cookies unless they were baked in a commercial kitchen. Have you ever heard of anyone getting food poisoning from cookies? Dry baked goods are probably the safest food there is, but it's just liability worries.
I have sent hot soup, hot macaroni, hot fish sticks, hot spaghetti and meatballs in the thermos. Plus cold things like hard boiled eggs. Something sitting in an insulated thermos for 4 hours is not the same as sitting in the sun at a picnic for 4 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any good thermos recommendations - especially ones that are easy to eat out of and big enough for an older kid? Thanks!

Thermos Funtainer food jar. There are two sizes.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a tropical country where we would take lunches to school in regular lunchboxes and there was no refrigeration so the food would just sit on the shelf till lunch. I now send food in a Thermos and don’t think twice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food service rules are ultra-conservative because of liability concerns, the risk that you’re feeding immunocompromised people, and the fact that if you’re making a metric ton of food every day the chances of a .01% event are much higher than if you’re making one meal.

Also, add in the fact that you are talking about ultra-processed foods like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.

I have no idea how some of you people step out of the house each morning, you're so cautious.

Correct. In my state you cannot even sell cookies unless they were baked in a commercial kitchen. Have you ever heard of anyone getting food poisoning from cookies? Dry baked goods are probably the safest food there is, but it's just liability worries.
I have sent hot soup, hot macaroni, hot fish sticks, hot spaghetti and meatballs in the thermos. Plus cold things like hard boiled eggs. Something sitting in an insulated thermos for 4 hours is not the same as sitting in the sun at a picnic for 4 hours.

I don't know. There was just a thread about someone being cautioned about eating a cookie. Probably because cookies are one of the most dangerful foods on the planet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any good thermos recommendations - especially ones that are easy to eat out of and big enough for an older kid? Thanks!

Thermos Funtainer food jar. There are two sizes.

https://www.amazon.com/THERMOS-FUNTAINER-Ounce-Stainless-Steel/dp/B08NCPJSTX/ref=sr_1_10?crid=3CB5YTQ16FOWQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.sSHx_f2irnYW5ikQDiI5D5aZ2c1FMM7O9sSaAI3fMO64uLBdtuy_AcI0QEPZQNDcUG53ph6cihZdP68Z-cHMHoQND2vAZRAZOGKRfJGM7eh6m9mdrNXWIlgy0oiSBed4nMXPvik2V7FtNxx6UwRzGgbrHNcX8-ItZXJLuaRCSKFTgZamPM6k9ybiU5-Ra8-JIgTV_abyYmsU8udi8KueLo2oXMZjThKZU6LoiNQCkVfhbC3BdmIGF7GAe_gmv6xCUo428EM1cC5wI3dMwZN7GnFzDtNFfxBamwxO3neCF-A.jafMmJ58OKgHt15Rn9OrIhb4dmgyrM5N5VjEqTAyB2U&dib_tag=se&keywords=thermos+for+hot+food&qid=1724164466&sprefix=thermo%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-10

[Anonymous]

It definitely violates food safety rules, so I don’t risk it. All the people who say they’ve never had a problem don’t really know if those times they have thrown up or had diarrhea that they blamed on a stomach bug were actually from like warm Mac and cheese.

[Anonymous]

*luke warm

[Anonymous]

I packed my three kids hot lunches in a thermos for 15 years, including meat and chicken, and they never got sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It definitely violates food safety rules, so I don’t risk it. All the people who say they’ve never had a problem don’t really know if those times they have thrown up or had diarrhea that they blamed on a stomach bug were actually from like warm Mac and cheese.

If you’re that cautious over a potential stomach bug, probably best to not send your kid to school at all.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t food safer in a Thermos compared to cold cut meat on a sandwich sitting in room temperature?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t food safer in a Thermos compared to cold cut meat on a sandwich sitting in room temperature?

It really has to be. I survived years of warm mayo sandwiches. Luke warm mac n cheese is fine. Plus the new thermos containers really trap in heat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It definitely violates food safety rules, so I don’t risk it. All the people who say they’ve never had a problem don’t really know if those times they have thrown up or had diarrhea that they blamed on a stomach bug were actually from like warm Mac and cheese.

Or maybe, just maybe it was a virus that had nothing to do with food safety.

Frankly, millions or billions of people use thermoses for hot and cold lunches every day and they’re not getting sick. It’s perfectly safe it’s nothing to worry about you. Just need to preheat or pre-cool your thermos and it’ll be hot by the time you get to lunch.

[Anonymous]

Hopefully lunch isn't the high spot of anyone's day. Put a cartoon in the luchbag as love and just send whatever you have been.

[Anonymous]

iT vIoLaTeS fOoD sAfEtY

Oof some of you act like they are eating raw chicken.

[Anonymous]

Do a test. Make a dish you would serve, put it in the thermos, and check the temp at 1. You can start but warming the thermos and by putting in the food as hot as possible. If it were me, I’d do this a few times.

Problem might be that it warms other foods in the lunch. Or it might be fine.