The Quality of food in our childrens schools! I'm quite upset, are you?

Public school lunch worse than fast food
December 15, 2009 @ Michael Hampton → 2 Comments

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is buying beef and chicken to serve to your children in public school that fast-food chains reject as poor quality or even unsafe.

An investigation by USA TODAY found that quality and safety standards used by fast food chains were much more stringent than those the government uses.

For instance, the USDA supplied schools with old, rejected chickens which would have otherwise been used as pet food or compost. KFC refuses to buy these so-called “spent hens,” which are too old to lay eggs, and Campbell’s Soup cites quality as its reason for rejecting them. But your kids are eating them in school.

“Mature hens must comply with the same safety standards as any other chicken processed and sold to consumers,” Rayne Pegg, head of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, told USA TODAY. But a 2002 Washington State University study found that spent hens were four times more likely to be contaminated with salmonella.

It found that McDonald’s, Burger King, and retail outlets like Costco tested their meat five to 10 times more often than the government, and that fast food standards for potentially harmful bacteria were up to 10 times more stringent than government standards for school lunches.

“We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants,” says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. “We are not using those same standards.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt “the highest standards” for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that “the disparity would exist no more.”

Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department’s minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers. — USA TODAY

“Companies that have to attract and keep customers to stay in business have a huge incentive to avoid such things as, you know, sending their customers to the hospital,” wrote Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “Not so government bureaucrats or educationists, who are getting your tax dollars no matter what.”

A USA TODAY analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that between 1998 and 2007, over 470 outbreaks of food-borne illness sickened at least 23,000 school children.
"School Lunch" by Ishikawa Ken; CC BY-SA 2.0

Now some government bureaucrats want to copy the fast food chains’ testing requirements. “Our children deserve a testing program at least as good as the fast food chains,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Gillibrand also asked for the USDA “to terminate contracts with any habitual violators of your food safety policies.” Vilsack said that the department would conduct a review, but didn’t promise anything.

One of those “habitual violators” was Beef Packers of Fresno, Calif., which supplied 450,000 pounds of ground beef to the government for public schools last summer. Beef Packers had to recall another 826,000 pounds at the time for salmonella contamination. After a second recall last week where two people in Arizona fell ill, some members of Congress want Beef Packers closed.

Maybe we need corporations to save us from evil government, rather than the reverse. It’s clear that the government is incapable on its own of assuring food safety. Or, as McCluskey says, “How many more children have to get E. coli before we allow freedom in education?”

["School Lunch" photo by Ishikawa Ken; CC BY-SA 2.0]

The Scoop on Local food

Last Week I attended a Town Hall Meeting at the local bookstore/coffee shop. The Matter Book store here in ft. Collins is a mecca for local movement and progressive community endeavors. Owner Todd Simmons who also runs Wolverine Farm Publishing as well as owner of the Matter bookstore facilitated this event as a way to unite various projects within the local food movement. Ft. Collins is a progressive community rich with individuals who are striving to "do the right thing". The panel who was presenting information to the public included, Happy Heart Farm, a Locally run CSA. Dennis and Baily Stenson have devoted their lives to Community Sustainable Agriculture here in this town for 27 years and continue to do so in a harmonious and Bio-dynamic way. Also Galemarie Kimmel of Be-Local, a local business which publishes an annual coupon book geared to support the local economy. John Anderson, who I call the Willy Wonka of worm world also sat in on the panel as well as the Growing Project and Grow Forth both Community Farms.

While sitting in on this gathering, I felt proud to be a part of this community. A community who realizes that true solidarity is gained through sustainable practices. We are living in a day when natural resources are dwindling and greed is a prevalent quality which drives corporate power. I find myself wondering what is the humanistic quality that is lacking when people wage life for money. When the love of material overrides good and pure intentions. Welcome to our reality. All of us objectified and most marginalized by these circumstances. Yet we are all simply going through the motions, we are trapped and few of us have a say. The cost of survival is great and many of us struggle financially. I know I do however, my passion for life enables me to free my mind of these impoverished dimensions.

I love my life very much and I am quite grateful for every inch of it, So what is it, what is this human quality which is more or less tolerant of political systems which harm the planet on a daily basis. My family is from the Ukraine and when I was growing my father and I would quarrel because of my distaste in American policy. He would always say, "Alisa, you live in the best country in the world". I understand where my dear father was coming from, The USSR had horrific political corruption when my father was a child and I am sorry for people which lived with in these oppressive systems. However, that doesn't make America perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I compare it to a toxic relationship. Say you have two people and one person spits in the other persons face everyday and the person being spit on says well at least they aren't beating me. It's the same thing here. We as Americans need to set our standards higher. Our standard for clean water and clean air. Our standards for better food and more wholesome treatment of animals. Our standards for LOVE with in our individual relationships and our ability to care for each other, young and old. We need to create more healthy green jobs here in this country and return to the more localized economy. The local grain mill and wood mill. The local Furniture makers and the Local Butchers. The local farmers and Quilters, Fiber Spinners even the neighborhood electrical repair men. Let us face it. We will never go back to the ways of our ancestors, But if we loose their ways we loose a great wisdom. Many of us have lost it already. I know in some ways I have.

I know that all too often it is our own individual reality which creates our life style and we all know that all people have different life styles, but the bottom line is that we need to stop becoming such a consuming people. At this rate we will consume our children's share let alone their children's share. What wise civilization does this. What mother eats her childs' portion of food and allows her child to starve to death. Not a very ethical or wise one. We are a fire out of control, consuming all the air. We are selfish and ignorant and our children will pay for it. Yet I live with hope that all these horrific realities will be brought into the forefront of all of our lives via avenues of knowledge amongst the people.
Here is a short list of things that you can do to make big changes.
1. Shop at a local food co-op if there is one in your area. If not start one.

2. Be aware of the trash production that your family is creating.
a. buy your food in bulk, bring your own jars and bags to the store.
b. Find local dairy farmers to get your milk from.
c. communicate with your local grocer to supply more localized food
d. Ride your bike when you can
e. Start communicating with your local government to fix road infrastructure
to support bicycle commuting.
f. Communicate with local restaurant owners about compostable to go wear.
(start a company that will supply local restaurants with this material)
I promise it will succeed!
G. Get involved in local public schools to get more localized and healthy food
for our kids
H. make your own darn cookies!
I. Find a local organization that does good work and volunteer
J. Make someone smile everyday! Love is the most powerful quality that we have as
humans, USE IT !!!!!!!!!!