Lost all perspective - unrefridgerated sandwich

[DietCokeAddict19]

I'll start this off by saying that I have OCD, particularly around contamination/germs/vomiting, so I know my perspective on this is likely to be completely warped, hence asking on here.

Once day a week I pick my kids up from their dad's house and take them to school (we've been divorced 8 years). When I picked them up this morning DC2 was putting a tesco meal deal into his school bag - some sort of smoothie, crisps, and a sausage, bacon and egg sandwich. I asked him if he had anything to keep it cool with, as it was going into his bag at 8am and wouldn't be eaten until 12.30. He did have a look in the freezer, but no cool packs etc, so he put it into his bag as it was.

There was no time to sort out anything else - it's too far to drive back to mine for a cool pack and get to school on time, and no time to get any other food from somewhere else.

I'm (probably irrationally) upset about it. I can't control what ExH does, and yet if DC2 is ill, it will be me who has to look after him and take time off work to do it as he is now staying with me until the weekend. And also, if he does get food poisoning, it was so fucking avoidable. I can't see anything beyond what a twat ExH is for not doing enough to look after DC2's health, but again I know this is my own stuff getting triggered because DC2 almost died as a baby and I'm so anxious about him being unwell again.

Yes, I know my anxiety is out of control. I am in therapy, I was signed off work for 2 months earlier in the year because of my mental health. I'm trying really hard to get better, for both myself and the kids, but it's not really getting any better.

Am I overreacting to the sandwich thing? Part of me thinks if it was cheese then I wouldn't be so anxious, but warm sausage and egg does not seem a good combination to me.

I've never used cool bags or cooling elements for packed lunches or picnics to be eaten a few hours after making or taking out of the fridge.

I've never refrigerated my lunch nor my dc's. Never had food poisoning!

I've always used insulated lunchboxes and cool packs with any packed lunches here. Years ago when I was nannying, there was a young girl who died from food poising from her ham sandwich. Her parents were urging people to think about their children's lunchboxes. Yes it's rare but it's not impossible. Clearly.
For the sake of chucking a couple of cool pads in, or a frozen yoghurt etc, I just don't think it's worth the risk.

I grew up in the 1970’s. A different World. School trip, Lake District, jam sandwiches made for all the group. I got the job that day of rucksack with sandwiches. I fall in Lake (Windemere to be precise). Sandwiches a bit soggy, but we all ate them, and no one died. Was I wet, yes I was. But everyone handed over spare bits of clothing and again, we all survived. Character building, how to make the most of a funny situation.

I grew up with an over anxious parent, and it blighted parts of my life when I look back. I vowed in my early teenage years to keep things in perspective, be level headed and get on with things. My sister, who I love very much, picked up the anxiety and overthinking. Too frightened, apprehensive to do a lot of things, and it really does blight her life sometimes. I have to be very careful what I say. But she has survived unwashed mushrooms, out of date cheese, only had the occasional mild bump in her car. We are like chalk and cheese🤣

Many years ago i lived in a hot country, every school day every child in the school had packed lunch with nowhere cool to store their lunch and may parents didn't use ice packs. The children were fine. In the worst of the summer i used frozen Capri Sun that had been frozen, it meant the lunch was kept coolish and my children had a coldish drink with their lunch.

Honestly, you're overthinking it but I get it and your feelings are valid. I have ocd (thankfully not manifesting in the same way yours do) and it does make you irrational - but that's part of the condition!

I've never used ice packs with my kids and they've taken all sorts of things to school - meat, cheese, dairy ... and they've lived to tell the tale. In all honesty, ice cold sandwiches are a bit grim, and most kids don't take an ice pack.

They will be OK. Honestly. But I get why you would be worried about it.

It's refreshing to see that we have got to page three of a thread about a child's lunch and nobody has chimed in with 'OMG, I can't believe you let your child eat so much PROCESSED FOOD!'.

WRT the sandwich, it's absolutely fine. What was in your lunchbox as a child? I bet you had unrefrigerated sandwiches sometimes yourself!

My teens tell me classrooms are freezing these days. Energy bills are expensive now and schools have no money. A meal deal sandwich is starting from thoroughly chilled through, unlike a homemade sandwich, and it's fairly well insulated in a school bag. It'll probably still be on the chilly side by lunch.

Kindly, yes, you are over reacting.
I have never refrigerated sandwiches except when going to the beach or outside picnic on a scorching hot day. Even then, more about taste than any risk of poisoning.

Cool packs are a new thing. People have been eating warm sandwiches since they were invented.

So as it turns out, he didn’t eat the sandwich as his lunchtime club overran and he didn’t have time to eat it.

But he feels sick anyway.

Sigh.

I never put sandwiches in the fridge between breakfast and lunchtime. I don't like chilled sandwiches, plus for ages the fridge at work was full of forgotten lunches that had gone off, bleurgh. I'm still alive.

My Christmas turkey gets cooked on Christmas Eve afternoon and is then covered in foil and left on the side. It generally stays covered in foil on the side, getting gradually smaller, until the day after Boxing Day, when I remove any remaining meat and either freeze or put in fridge.

Same. In a heatwave, probably. Otherwise no.

Actually makes me shudder to think of this.

What do you think people did before fridges?

They shoved it in a cold place. Butter, milk, eggs, meat.

Food poisoning is always a risk, but so is riding a bike, driving on the school run, walking down the stairs, using a gas stove, etc etc.

I'd suggest you need some exposure therapy, leave food out on the worktop, then eat it an hour later. Something simple, like a ham and cheese sandwich.

Complete overreaction, chronic anxiety. I have never kept my lunch in the fridge, preventing it at room temperature.

You wouldn't cope in my place then, pheasant and deer hanging in my outbuilding for weeks. Potatoes and root veg packed away for months. Yesterday's lunch time wraps were made with wraps that were out of date on the 29th August.

I'm 60 years old and still going strong OP, despite taking my pack up sandwich to school every day (I'm a teacher) without any kind of refrigeration 👌🏻

Even on the hottest of days, my sandwich goes in my handbag wrapped in foil or a sandwich bag, and stays there until I get time to eat it (which in today's case was from 7am this morning until I got home this evening at 6.30!!! It was chicken too...and I still ate it!

Don't sweat it...your kids will be fine 😍

Talking of cold bread I knew someone who used to make up a weeks worth of sandwiches for her kids freeze them and then put them in lunch box frozen in the morning to defrost for lunchtime 🤢🤢🤢🤢

Trust me...we can't afford to heat our schools to even a mildly tepid degree! Heating won't go on until after half term, and even then we'll still be able to see our breath when we breathe out!

Last year I invested in thermal underwear and several pairs of fingerless gloves, because my classroom never rose above 14 degrees from November through to February! Parents complained but there was nothing done...I have a big old room and one teensy radiator that barely generates any sort of heat at all. It wasn't even powerful enough to dry the inevitable wet socks/gloves that are ever present in a primary winter classroom!

Sandwiches will be fine 👌🏻

@DietCokeAddict19
I completely agree with you and feel very queasy at what people are leaving lying about their kitchen!
Ice blocks all the way in our house and proud of it!

Disclaimer- I have a degree in catering management and a level 7 diploma in food hygiene.

I had a meltdown the other week as I had bought my teenage son a meal deal to take to the stables with him. Chicken wrap etc. Unbeknown to me he didn't eat it, it stayed in his bag and he actually consumed the chicken wrap the next afternoon. I went mad, was convinced he'd be ill and was warning him about what symptoms he would experience and he didn't even feel queasy let alone have food poisoning. Massive lesson about chilling out a bit learned for me there!

That's a getting ahead tip I've seen in loads of places. Im ashamed to admit I tried it once, but the resulting sandwich was... Not great so we didn't do it again. It does work for cheese toasties though.