Your health: The germiest public places

The germiest public places

Cold and flu viruses can live outside of the human body for about 24 hours, Joseph Rubio, the director of microbiology at RB, the makers of Lysol, told weather.com. So, anytime you're out in public, it's likely there's a cold or flu virus lurking on a surface nearby.

But there are steps you can take to avoid getting sick — washing your hands or using hand sanitizer after touching public objects, and being wary of commonly germy spaces.

Watch out for these germ-laden hot spots:

Grocery store cart handles: Anything a lot of people touch is going to be dirty, Rubino said. Grocery store shopping carts are one of the worst offenders, especially because you alternate between cart handles and fresh food. Wipe down the handle with a portable cleansing wipe if you can, or at the very least, don't touch any food directly while you shop, he suggested.

Restaurant table surfaces: When you come in contact with restaurant tables and chairs, “you're touching something a lot of other people touch,” Rubino said. The heath problems start when you then put your hands to your mouth, eyes or ears.

Salt and pepper shakers or condiments bottles: Rubino said he doesn't go so far as to only handle such things with a napkin, but it's a good practice to wash your hands before and after eating and to avoid touching food with your hands after you've handled public property, he said.

Who makes a healthier lunch?

Lunches packed at home are generally not as nutritious as school lunches, a study shows.

Researchers compared more than 750 school meals with more than 560 packed meals given to pre-K and kindergarten students in three schools, analyzing them for nutritional value over five days, CBS News reports.

“We found that packed lunches were of less nutritional quality than school lunches,” said lead researcher Alisha Farris, a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech University.

The packed lunches had more fat, and included more desserts and sugary drinks than the school lunches did, the researchers found.

“There was a spectrum,” Farris said. “There were some really healthy packed lunches. But overall, they were pretty unhealthy.”

The study is published in the November-December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.