It was with some relief we absorbed the announcement last week that can opt out of serving it in their lunchrooms.
But it does raise the question: Why is that stuff even allowed in a national school lunch program that has just gone through a
Though it meets food safety standards, the additive is a highly processed and, we think, unappetizing part of menus that are supposed to emphasize items such as fresh fruit and pizza with whole wheat crust.
It makes us wonder whether one hand is working against the other at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the nation’s school lunch program.
To be fair, the filler that has been derisively nicknamed “pink slime” is widely used to augment ground beef. It is made . It is treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.
The additive has been on the market for years, and was given its colorful nickname by a federal microbiologist who recoiled when he encountered it during a 2002 inspection of a meat processing plant.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been vociferous in criticizing the product. Last year, McDonald’s and other chains stopped using ammonia-treated beef.
Earlier this month, a Houston woman started an online petition to end the use of the beef filler in school lunches. By late last week, some 225,000 people had signed.
The gross-out factor of “pink slime” aside, schools would do well in general to monitor the amount of red meat served. .
Certainly, hamburger laced with the additive does not fit in with the school lunch overhaul picture that officials painted earlier this year.
, announced with fanfare in January, included rules about sodium and trans fats, and increasing whole grains and fruits and vegetables.
“We have a right to expect that the food they get at school is the same kind of food that we want to serve at our own kitchen tables,” first lady Michelle Obama said as the new standards were being rolled out.
We’re going to go out on a limb and say ground beef with “pink slime” filler probably isn’t served at the White House.
We’re glad districts participating in the national school lunch program, which serves 31 million kids a day, many of them low-income, will have a choice as well.
Denver and Boulder students . We hope other districts, too, will turn their backs on this overprocessed and unnecessary additive.
