Oh Horrors!—Bag Lunches May Be Dangerous!

Cold food that's left at room temperature warms up. Shocking! The lunch you bring from home may-might-could be dangerous. Run! Run for the hills! The boogie man might getcha!

by Heidi Stevenson

9 August 2011

In what must be the most inane study ever conducted under the guise of health science, it has been determined that bagged lunches from home may get too warm, and therefore may cause foodborne illness. The study did not investigate whether foodborne illness resulted. It only said that the potential might-possibly-perhaps-maybe exists.

Taxpayer money was spent by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to discover that school lunches warm up between the time they're made and the time they're eaten! There's cleverness here—but it's not in finding and resolving health problems. The cleverness is in its ability to manipulate public opinion to believe in dangers that don't exist so that access to real food—healthy food—can be squelched.

Even on the face of this, the study is absurd. It seems to imply that any food not eaten straight out of the refrigerator or the oven is, by definition, dangerous. According to them, if food in a lunch bag warms to more than 39.2°F (4°C)—anything over refrigeration level—then it's potentially dangerous!

They even found that ice packs and such aren't adequate for keeping food cool enough. According to the study's authors, only 1.6% of perishable—that is, real—food was cold enough. In other words, they want us to believe that we're totally helpless in the face of germs that could-might-possibly grow in food between the time it leaves home and gets eaten about four hours later.

The study—if you can stomach that term for it—examined the lunches of preschool children. At the very least, the authors say, "These results indicate an urgent need for parents and child care personnel to be educated in safe food practices."

When was the last time you heard of food borne illness suffered as a result of fresh food from a brown bag lunch in someone of any age? Certainly, if the food that goes into a lunch isn't fresh, then it can be dangerous. But the study did not attempt to show there was any undo growth of disease-causing bacteria, or more importantly, that any children were harmed by lunches that had warmed to more than refrigerator temperature.

In point of fact, the study demonstrates only one thing. Cold food that's left at room temperature warms up. That's real rocket science! Of course, it does not show that there's any harm in it. It merely gives the impression that it's dangerous. Or not. What gives the impression of danger is actually the spin, not the facts.

Funny? Or a Sinister Motive?

On one level, this is funny. However, we need to ask why such a study was done. After all, it wasn't done as a joke. In terms of health, the study demonstrates absolutely nothing. However, it's effective in generating fear of food. And that's the point.

Take note of the fact that it was children's lunches that were examined—not those of adults. The reason is clear: small children are at greater risk from bacterial illness. The purpose of choosing that age group was the fear factor. So-called health agencies are trying to convince us that we are incapable of managing our own health. We're supposed to be fearful of real foods, likes fresh apples and sandwiches made from real organic unprocessed foods.

We are being pushed, prodded, and forced into diets that maximize the profits of Agribusiness and Big Pharma. Natural raw foods are demonized. We're supposed to fear real foods and trust governmental agencies to set rules in place that eliminate our access to them.

No one with any sense would want to subject children to the dreck that's produced by school lunch programs. Yet, that's where we're headed. Some schools have already banned homemade lunches, forcing children to eat whatever the school wants them to eat:

Special diet? Too bad.

Want your child to eat only organic? Sorry.

Don't want additives in your child's foods? Not your choice.

Don't want your child to eat processed foods? Not your decision.

One of the steps in making that happen everywhere is to demonize real food—the sort that parents who pay attention want their children to eat. That's the purpose of this study. It isn't intended to learn something of importantce. It's merely intended to push public health policy in the desired direction.

A study that tries to give the impression that virtually all foods sent from home are dangerous because they get warmer than refrigerator temperature is a rather nifty step in steamrolling our right to real food or even to determine what our children can eat.

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