Archive for December 10th, 2009

I loved school lunches.

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

When we left for school in the morning we took a brown bag or lunch box that my mother had prepared for us or a quarter for our school lunch. At twenty five cents the lunch was still a bargain because you got a protein, a starch, a vegetable, milk and a desert. The cost is probably a lot higher today and a lot more of the lunches are subsidized by the government. However I?m willing to bet that our lunches were much safer to eat.

From a pure sourcing perspective, the question is are our schools just buying what the government has to sell in terms of commodities or are they actually asking questions as to where the products came from, how they were grown and what standards the growers and processors are beings held accountable to.

I don?t eat a whole lot of fast food today. Even if I could get by the thick fried coating many of the chicken products are processed and just does not taste like chicken to this author. So I exercise my right to not eat it. With that said, it would seem ludicrous to eat something that was even below the standard of these products. In a USA TODAY article I read this morning titled School meals lag fast-food standards; by Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Anthony DeBarros? it stated that the USDA has provided thousands of tons of chickens to schools that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. You have to be kidding me, I would not give something to my dog (best friend) that was called spent hens and certainly do not want my grandchildren to eat it.

In yesterdays post ?Food Safety requires a community effort President Obama was quoted as saying ?There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat are safe and do not cause us harm.? Well this author believes it is high time the government did so. It is also about time that school system procurement leaders ask a few more questions about the safety of the products they are buying for our children.

If my granddaughter asks me to go to lunch with her at school, I will obviously say yes, but I will be bringing our lunch in a brown bag because I?d hate to see her eat what is being bought for the schools.

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