Archie Magoulas, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service Specialist on Back-to-School Food Safety

The speaker discusses the importance of food safety when preparing and packing school lunches. They recommend using insulated lunchboxes to keep cold food cold and suggest using gel packs, frozen juice boxes, or frozen water bottles to maintain the temperature. They emphasize the need for clean hands and suggest washing for 20 seconds with warm water and soap or using hand sanitizer. The speaker also mentions the use of different colored cutting boards for different types of food and provides a recipe for a homemade sanitizer solution. They stress the importance of using a food thermometer to ensure food reaches safe internal temperatures. The speaker advises refrigerating leftovers within two hours and shares the website foodsafety.gov and USDA meat and poultry hotline for more information. As we move on into August, we're already talking about back to school. Of course, it's an exciting time that is filled with new school supplies, including that new lunchbox. But parents and caregivers should know that they've still got to take extra precautions when preparing and packing that perfect school lunch. And that's what I think everybody wants. My guest this morning who's joining me with some safety tips is a USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service Specialist. And joining us from Washington D.C. this morning, Archie Magoulas here at the RNJ Morning Program. Hi there, Archie. It's Byrd and WRNJ Radio in New Jersey. How you doing? Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Good to talk to you. I mentioned about, you know, the old packing the lunch and taking that to school with us each day. I had a six million dollar man lunchbox, Archie. I thought I was like the coolest kid in my town growing up, just to date myself a little bit. But there's still so many safety precautions that we have to take. Why would you recommend, and what's the difference, an insulated soft-sided lunchbox as opposed to my hard metal six million dollar man lunchbox? Why is that a better choice? Well, the thicker one, the more insulated types are better, especially for very cold food. You want something that's very insulated. So I guess the thicker ones. I mean, the other ones might work for things that don't have to be that cold, maybe a sandwich like a peanut butter, something along, and jelly. Something that's very perishable, lunch meat, for example, ham sandwich, you know, ham salad, whatever you guys like, that's got to be cold. So you want something that will insulate it. So we advise to use at least a couple of gel packs, the frozen ones. You can also use frozen juice boxes or frozen bottle of water. You can do these overnight and keep the cold food in the refrigerator until you're ready to take it to school. That's become a very popular hack, Archie, I think, where you freeze a bottle of water and use it as an ice pack and then melt it and then drink the water. So it accomplishes a couple things. That's right. Yeah, because it will. I mean, and of course, the different regions are a little different, but overall, that should work pretty well because you want to avoid basically what we call the danger zone. So the danger zone is just above 40 refrigeration temperatures and all the way up to 140, that long range of 100 degrees. That's where bacteria like. They like those temperatures and you want to stay as far as possible away from it by keeping cold foods cold, hot foods hot. And Archie, I don't think we're ever going to get away from this constant, you know, keeping our hands clean, sanitizing our hands, carrying the wipes around with us. I still do it every time I go to the grocery store. Absolutely. That should be a part of every school lunchbox, right? Oh, that's a constant, of course. You want to make sure you that's step number one, the clean step. You want to wash for 20 seconds. I'm sorry, for 20 seconds with warm water and soap. If you don't have it, carry a sanitizer. Well, if you go to school, you can wash it quickly. Then have a sanitizer beforehand. And we say for little ones, if you can't remember 20 seconds, I think some adults don't always remember 20 seconds. What it feels like we say, sing happy birthday twice. Or sing a song from this Barbie movie that all these kids are into, right? Maybe that'll help. Or the ABC song. There we go. Yes, that's the alternative. Yeah. I'm familiar with the other one. Kids are grown, but one of mine did see it. Full disclosure, I haven't seen it yet either, Archie, but I will get there. What's the advantage of using different colored cutting boards? How does that help keep us safe? Yeah, you can. That's one option to do things when you're at home, for example, cutting chicken, meats and things that are going to produce juices. They can have bacteria. So make sure you, we say use the different colors. Let's say a blue and a red, blue for the vegetables, separate. That's a separate step. After the clean, we say separate, but you don't always have to do the different colors. As long as you take the same one and just make sure you wash it, warm water and soap again. And that's about it. If you want to sanitize, you get a teaspoon of a tablespoon of chlorine bleach. Everybody has some usually. And mix it with a gallon of water that makes a homemade sanitizer solution. That's good thinking. Yeah, you can use, you can use two different colors, but you can use the same one as well. I mean, the different colored cutting boards, that's almost like a professional kitchen kind of thinking. That's a, that's a good idea to use. I like it. Not bad. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't watched a cooking show for a while, but I think I've seen it. They do do that on TV. Yeah. Yeah. Archie Magoulas. Archie Magoulas is my guest this morning. USDA food safety and inspection service specialist. He's with USDA and again, joining us from Washington this morning, just some real quick back to school food safety tips. You know, it's the summer. We forget about the basics sometimes of doing the right thing. So Archie's just given us a quick reminder today. I'm very lax Archie. I admit it with using the food thermometer when I grill, I got to step up my thermometer game, but why is that so important to use? That's very important. Yeah. That's the third step after clean separate cook is the third step. We say, use a food thermometer to make sure you reach safe internal temperatures. So like a burger would be 160 or something like a patty made of ground beef, 160 degrees is the minimum. You can't tell by looking, you know, every so many burgers, one out of four, I believe it was, they look brown, but they're not quite there yet. So make sure you, you do check the temperatures. Chicken should be, or poultry should reach 165. If you're doing any kind of fish, 145. Cuts of red meat, 145 also. That's a medium rare with a three minute rest. That's very important. Yeah. We're actually, we've been recommending thermometers for years. It's very important to have. It's a great habit to get into. Oh yeah. They say, is it done yet? Smells good. Looks good. Looks cooked. We'll make sure the temperature is right first. Yeah. Yeah. Such an important thing to do. That's for sure. More tips Archie. Well, we can find this website, social media. You got some stuff posted. Yeah. Definitely. And the last step of course, was chill. Make sure you refrigerate any leftovers at home or any place within two hours. That's when you're at room temperature, one hour, one hour, if it's like 90 in a warm environment. Yeah. The good website to remember, easy to remember, it's foodsafety.gov, or you can call us toll free at the hotline, USDA meat and poultry hotline. That's 1-888-674-6854. All right. Great stuff. Archie, listen, enjoy the rest of the summer and thank you for the tips this morning. Absolutely. Have a great school year. We'll be going back to school before you know it. I know. I know. And if you see the Barbie movie, let me know what you think. All right. I will. Archie. All right. Have a great day, my friend. Take care. My pleasure. Thank you. You too. All right. Thank you, sir.