What Did Your Child Eat for Lunch?

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School Lunch Safety: a Primetime Investigation (abcnews.com)

 

Starting at the Source

 

Primetime started its school lunch investigation at the source: the

processing plants that supply meat to schools. The U.S. Department of

Agriculture, which administers the National School Lunch Program,

purchases enough food to feed 27 million children every day. The

department is also responsible for inspecting every meat plant that

supplies schools.

 

For the Primetime segment, a safety inspector agreed to take a hidden

camera to a plant that processes more than a million pounds of

chicken for schools each year. The inspector, who requested

anonymity, found several chickens with yellow sores indicating an

infection under the skin, as well as potentially hazardous fecal

matter. The inspector also found filth in machines that box chicken

and processing equipment dripping with chicken fat. Documents

obtained by Primetime showed that the plant had repeatedly failed

tests for salmonella and inspectors say they had demanded

improvements, but, they said, the plant kept selling chicken for

consumption at schools.

 

When shown the video, Elsa Murano, the USDA's undersecretary for food

safety, said it was " upsetting to say the least. " She said the

department has " revolutionized " its meat inspection system in the

past four or five years, toughening health regulations for plants

that process meat.

 

She confirmed that the USDA sometimes buys meat for the school lunch

program from plants that have had health violations in the past, but

only if the plants correct the problems " to our satisfaction. " In the

Finley Elementary School case, the USDA had bought the contaminated

beef from a plant that had been cited for 171 critical violations in

the previous 18 months.

 

The USDA buys meat from the lowest bidder that passes government

standards, which can cause problems, according to food safety

advocate Caroline Smith Dewaal. " The plants that want to sell to the

school lunch program are frequently the plants with some of the worst

records, because they're the ones who can keep the meat cheap, " said

Dewaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public

Interest.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/school_lunches_0211

07.html