While as a nation we collectively sigh a bit of relief after the holiday season and pull on a sweatshirt to hide the extra pound (or three) we gained, an article from the New York Times caught our attention last week.
In the infamous novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair gave America a behind the scenes look at the meatpacking industry. The book upset the country so much that it prompted Theodore Roosevelt, our president, to push for food safety standards and what is now the FDA, among other agencies to watch over our food supply. Sinclair’s quote about the impact of the book, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach” is still studied by history students across the country. Fast forward about 100 years, and you’ll find similar problems with our meat supply today.
At BoardBuzz we try to stick to the topics that face America’s students, so you may be wondering why we are “going Oprah” on beef. In this most recent case exposed by the Times, the meat that is being served to school children in many parts of the nation is being injected with ammonia which has been cleared by the FDA to kill E. coli. But the ammonia is not listed on the ingredients on the packaging and according to the beef company, helps to save money for school districts, which means this processed beef gets the lowest bid and is fed to schoolchildren. In fact, a Georgia prison sent beef back from this company because the frozen beef had an odor of ammonia that was so strong that they alerted officials. Since ammonia was not on the label, the cooks at the prison thought that there was something wrong with the beef.
We know there are many issues facing education today, but when we think about the students eating this food, and in some cases the only “good” meal students get in a day comes from free and reduced lunch programs, we have to stop and think about the pressures faced by schools to meet the nutritional needs of children with limited resources and the increased need among newly eligible students due to the economic downturn.
The federal government is looking into the issue of contaminated food reaching schools. A recently issued General Accountability Office (GAO) report identified standards and procedures to help reduce the risk of school children consuming recalled food purchased as commodities to use in school meals. The report specifically focused on eliminating contaminated food provided to schools through the commodity food program for use in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) school meal programs.
We hope that as you read the NYT article, you also consider those children and parents who don’t know about this problem, can’t speak up, or trust the school leaders to make the best decisions on their behalf. The Child Nutrition Act is up for reauthorizaton by Congress this year, giving school leaders an opportunity to voice their priorities for providing healthy meals to children so they are ready to learn.
