Packing a lunch is a regular part of many people’s days, especially those with children. Little ones rely on their parents to provide nutritious, safe and healthy snacks that can fuel them for an entire day of learning and activity. Did you know that the lunchbox that you choose for storing food in a lunch box can make a big difference in not only how much your child eats but how safe that food is too?
4 Tips For Storing Food In A Lunch Box
Consider some of the following tips when thinking about how to prepare a great lunch and store it safely in a lunchbox, no matter the occasion.
You Can Freeze More Foods Than You Think
You may find it difficult to make time early in the morning to get up and prepare foods fresh for lunch each day. The good news is that many more foods than you may imagine can freeze well without losing their texture or appeal. Items like cheese, peanut butter and bread hold up just fine in the freezer, which means you can spend some time in the evening crafting the next day’s lunch and save yourself some precious sleep in the mornings.
Freezing food for lunch also serves a number of other helpful purposes. A frozen sandwich, for example, suddenly becomes a cool pack for the entire lunchbox, keeping the food at a refreshing and safe temperature throughout the day until ready to eat. The material of the lunchbox can contribute to this, and metal lunchboxes tend to hold the cold very well, unlike simple paper bags. This frees up more space in the lunchbox for an additional serving of nutritious fruits or veggies where the ice pack would have been.
Buy Separators To Keep Foods Intact
It is not very appealing to open a lunchbox and find a mishmash of a variety of foods that have been thrown around and sliding all about throughout the day. And children will notice and feel the same way too. This could lead to them losing their appetite for their lunch or eating around the parts that are less appealing to them. Using a lunchbox with built-in separators or using separators of your own not only adds visual appeal to the lunch, which may entice picky eaters to try some of everything, but it also keeps dry food dry and moist food in its own section.
Visual differentiation is important for good food; if your child can see how much each portion takes up in their lunchbox, they can plan how they would like to eat their meal, and they are more likely to finish the entire thing—even the veggies.
Remember Food Safety
It will likely be several hours between when you prepare a lunchbox meal and when it is eaten. This is why you must keep food safety in mind; ideally, food stays slightly below 41 degrees, where bacteria cannot grow. However, keeping food cool and under 70 degrees is sufficient as long as the food is consumed before six hours. Freezing food, as mentioned above, can be one helpful way to make sure that the lunchbox temperature remains low, as can using a metal lunchbox. If you are not using any solid food like sandwiches that freezes well, consider freezing yogurt or a juice box for use as an ice pack.
Never put just-cooked hot food into a lunchbox; cool it in the fridge first. Adding hot food to a lunch box and then allowing it to sit and keep the rest of your food items warm is a direct contributor to the growth of bacteria in a contained space. And not all of the food in your lunchbox may taste great warm, such as baby carrots or fruits. Also, be aware of the material that the lunchbox is made out of. Plastics can leach BPA and other harmful chemicals into your food, which is another reason to choose a metal lunchbox.
Use a Lunchbox That Is Made of Safe Materials from Kangovou
The lunchbox you choose can make a bigger difference than you may imagine when it comes to not only the quality of your food by lunchtime but also the safety of what you store in it. Plastics and other common lunchbox materials can contribute to BPA, lead, PVC and phthalates in your food after it has been sitting in a lunchbox for hours at a time. Kangovou strives to be a resource for safe food storage, offering metal lunchboxes that will keep your food fresh and safe. Whether you’re looking for a large storage lunchbox or a neatly compartmentalized option with built-in separators, Kangovou is your one-stop shop for safe products. Reach out to Kangovou to see which items might help you most.
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