When I opened up my Google Reader this morning and saw an article from USA Today about a summer 2008 beef recall that excluded meat used in school lunches, my stomach literally turned.
Last summer, Beef Packers, Inc (BPI) recalled hundreds of thousands of pounds of tainted ground beef after a batch tested positive for salmonella. However, beef produced during the same time period at the same Fresno location was still given to children at school districts across the country.
The USA Today report states that the government tested the beef sent to schools and it didn’t show signs of salmonella so they felt it was OK to be used. However, food safety experts say that this meat should have been rejected, despite the lack of a positive salmonella test.
Here’s my problem with the whole situation – the federal government took this opportunity to make the decision to put thousands of school children at risk. Although the specific batches of beef did not test positive for salmonella, they should have followed food safety guidelines and discarded the meat. If adults want to take the chance that the negative test was accurate, that is their choice, but don’t make the decision for children that have no say in the matter.
Although I pack a waste-free school lunch for my kids, I don’t think it is fair that other children may have been put at risk from possibly tainted meat. It seriously makes my stomach turn.
On a related note, I highly suggest you take the time to watch Food Inc for a glimpse into BPI practices.
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Melissa, I’m with you on this one. How wrong is this! What’s the point of having food safety guidelines if they are then ignored?
That is scary! Even if the sample tested fine, there’s a chance that some of the meat was contaminated and passed through without inspection.