School Lunch = Meow Meow Meow Meow

[gblowfish]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/1...school_lunches

Why Is Crappy Fast Food Safer Than School Lunches?
Posted by Tara Lohan at 7:20 AM on December 28, 2009.

Thanks to the USDA, at school our kids are eating the equivalent of pet food.

A study by USA Today found that the U.S. government's school lunch program, via the USDA, handed schools millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't even clear the standards of of fast food restaurants like Jack in the Box and KFC.

The quality of meat in fast food restaurants has always frightened me, but not as much as reading this:

McDonald's, Burger King and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.

And the limits Jack in the Box and other big retailers set for certain bacteria in their burgers are up to 10 times more stringent than what the USDA sets for school beef.

For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders-- KFC won't buy them -- and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."

So, our kids are eating food that's about the equivalent of pet food. And a whole lot of kids. The article notes that 31 million students a day eat this meat and "President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are 'their most nutritious meal -- sometimes their only meal -- of the day,'" which is also frightening.

And it gets worse.

"Each year the USDA purchases more than $1 billion in cheap commodities as part of the federal contribution to the school lunch program," wrote David Murphy for Civil Eats. "Regretfully, the USDA is driven by two factors: get the food for the lowest price and prop up prices for commodities that are in oversupply or are unattractive to business purchases. Not quality. In 2009 alone, the USDA purchased more than $151 million of commodity pork to prop up failing industrial pork producers."

Our children shouldn't be a dumping bin for food waste and a prop for failing agribusiness.

[Mosbonian]

Some of you should do research on what is served at your local Elementary, Middle & High Schools...along with what is served at some colleges. As an employee of a company who is known for providing lunch/cafeteria services at all levels of schools, along with various businesses and hospitals I can tell you it is nothing like what we used to put up.

mmaddog
*******

[ProblemLyric]

Originally Posted by R Clark

I just can't seem to follow your line of thinking. Corn syrup has the same affect as sugar, both can be linked to type 2 diabetes.

sugar doesn't cause diabeetus in any way the only things that are actually linked to diabeetus is insufficient insulin in the blood and the body not producing enough insulin. being obese and not active can put you at a higher risk but other then that there really isn't one thing you can point at and say thats why i got diabetes. but yes the body digests both hfcs and other sugars the same.

School food sucks for more reasons then just the quality of meat, but damn wouldn't think it was that bad quality.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by RJ

You're a high school student?

Does CP have a ratings system, like the movies? Did you have to use fake ID to get in?

I had to pass a strict line of interrogation, I still have little idea about how I got in.