National Food Standards for School Lunch Lower than Fast Food

Pink Slime meat often found in school lunches

image from KSDK TV

“Pink Slime” meat often found in school lunches

Which has higher standards: school lunch or McDonald’s? According to a 2009 article by USA Today, the answer may be surprising: McDonald’s. In the article “Schools could learn lessons on food safety” published 2009, writers Elizabeth Weise and Peter Eisler assert that fast food standards for meat top those for school lunches.The article argues that while school meat quality met national standards, the quality was poor and contained scraps of animals that did not meet the quality standards to be used in fast food for major chains such as McDonalds, KFC, Burger King and more.  Additionally, meats used by fast food companies were checked for harmful chemicals, salmonella, and E-coli five to ten times more than the inspecition rate for meats sold to schools.

The article caused outrage in 2099.  The assumption that services provided to children would exceed that of fast food chains was shocking to many.  Junior Alexis Lawless-Gattone and junior Gary Marva were just as surprised.

Why the surprise? There is an expectation that schools are not only responsible for the a student’s academics but also their health and well-being.

“Pink slime,” sold by Beef Products Inc., emerges as one of the controversial topics in this dicussion.  This meat product  is marketed as lean finely textured beef, but in actuality, it is an ammonia treated mash of meat trimmings. However, it is legal to sell and consume.

When, in 2012, the McDonald’s fast food chain removed this “pink slime” from their meats in response to public outcry, many schools decided it was time to refuse it as well, including states like New Jersey. However, according to a 2013 Huffingtonpost article, writer Joe Satran reports that four states have order the meat product again: Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas. They join the other three,  Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, that never stopped purchasing it in the first place.

Why would the do this? Cost seems to be the bottom line for many school officials.

Increasing beef prices are one factor (which are at an all time high). That, along with the tight school lunch budgets, and the subsided outrage over the “pink slime” scandal, has paved the way for acceptance again.

Something that might contribute to this issue being placed on the back burner is the fact that students continue to purchase the lunches.

Some students aren’t really that concerened about it.

“Yeah, [I would] probably [eat the food] as long as there’s wasn’t anything gross like rats or something like that,” said junior Danielle Pinto.

Although the food companies and many schools are not doing as much as they should to address this problem, if people choose to ignore the facts and continue to buy food of low standards, those who buy and sell it will continue to feel as though they do not have to do anything to fix the problem.

It becomes a domino effect and as long as students continue to purchase school lunches, schools will continue to purchase their meats from companies with low quality, poorly inspected meat, and these companies will continue to produce their low quality poorly inspected meat because the consumer is continuing to demand it.