usa today archives – BottomLineFitness.com https://www.bottomlinefitness.com Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:34:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.8 School lunches worse than fast food https://www.bottomlinefitness.com/2009/12/13/school-lunches-worse-than-fast-food/ Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:20:29 +0000 https://www.bottomlinefitness.com/?p=1204 A few days ago USA Today reported on the failure of our government to supply quality food to the children of our nation. The report claims the meat supplied to our children at school, in many instances wouldn’t even meet the standards of fast food restaurants. Does this surprise anybody that the government is doing a worse job than private industry? Worse than fast food? Really? And this is what millions of developing children are fueling theirs bodies with.

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation’s schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn’t meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC, a USA TODAY investigation found.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program “meets or exceeds standards in commercial products.”

That isn’t always the case. 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.
(USA Today)

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