We use Pack-it lunch boxes. They are frozen overnight and remain cold for most of the school day.
That sounds like a good solution. If the food remains cold, that's what counts.
135 posted on Tue Sep 25 2012 02:35:46 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by pops88: “My daughter had a year of a school day being from 5:30 am- 4:00 pm thanks to being in a special program. I worried a bit about refrigeration as an RN, then had the revelation that a lot of what we’re told by the USDA is nanny state crap and the chance of her getting ill was extremely unlikely, especially since her meat sandwich was eaten at lunch. It wasn’t baking out in the sun and was pretty well insulated in her backpack or locker. I never packed her tuna fish salad though.”
Again, you're the mom and it's not my place to make decisions in your home — especially since you're an RN.
In my school growing up with no air conditioning and high temperatures in the locker room area where lunches were stored, my meat sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs routinely turned slimy and tasted bad, especially if mayonnaise rather than mustard was used. I have little doubt that at least some of my “tummyaches” and diarrhea and occasional vomiting were due to food poisoning. That was long ago and far away; today someone would have stopped my parents from sending unsafe lunches. There are risks to brown-bagging, but I think it's become clear that government involvement has exchanged one set of problems for a much worse set.