Some schools reject “pink slime” while others take a more cautious approach
»Springfield city schools pulled the one product from this year’s menu that might have contained LFTB. Next year, they won’t order it, said Chris Ashley, foodservice director there. Springfield sources meat almost entirely through the buying co-op EPC, whose ordering company says it won’t order beef with LFTB.
»Urbana City Schools Superintendent Charles Thiel said his district would try to balance price with what Urbana parents demanded. Urbana uses Gordon Food Service, which won’t reveal its clients’ ordering information.
»What has your school district decided? A4
SPRINGFIELD — Starting next school year, districts won’t automatically get beef with the substance critics have called “pink slime.” And if districts get it, they’ll know it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, because they’ll have to ask for it.
Grocery chains like Kroger and fast food giants like McDonald’s have stopped serving beef with the product after a public outcry in March. The substance isn’t harmful, according to food scholars and government regulators.
The USDA estimates beef without the compressed, de-fatted trimmings will cost approximately 3 percent more than beef with them. That translates to a few thousand dollars a year more for large districts and a few hundred for small ones.
Some districts in Clark and Champaign counties, like Springfield City Schools, said they’d be willing to pay the upcharge for the newly-formulated products to maintain confidence in their cafeterias’ quality.
Others, like Urbana City Schools, said they would consider which beef to use.
Schools have until May 14, an extended deadline, to change the types of beef they’ll order for next year, according to the USDA.
A Springfield News-Sun investigation last month revealed that schools across the Miami Valley likely served products with the substance, contrary to what districts believed about their products — and what they had told the public.
Every Clark and Champaign county district said “lean, finely-textured beef,” or LFTB, wasn’t a part of its menu. Upon further examination, most were likely serving it, and some changed their menus in response.
The substance has been added to most ground beef for at least a decade but has come under fire this year since a news story detailed how it’s made. The fat is melted out of fatty animal scraps, and what’s remaining, including connective tissue, is pressed together and mixed into ground beef to make it cheaper and leaner.
Amid the controversy in late March, USDA created new standards for the products schools have traditionally bought, like hamburger patties and meatballs — standards that said the criticized beef substance couldn’t be included.
So that schools could choose the finely-textured beef if they wanted, USDA created another category for those products. With this system, schools or distributors would have to consciously pick products with LFTB.
After the News-Sun’s investigation, more schools are choosing for themselves. But not all are. For their ordering, some rely on distributors like Gordon Food Service.
“Gordon Food Service just distributes the product that the schools say they want,” said Deb Abraham, GFS spokeswoman.
Some districts in Clark and Champaign counties buy food through a collective buying group called Southwestern Ohio Educational Purchasing Council. That group places orders through a California co-op that says none of its clients have chosen the old formulations that contain LFTB.
The pink slime debate underscores the pressure schools face to serve nutritious meals at rock-bottom prices and comes at the same time as changes to the National School Lunch Program that the Obama administration believes will make kids healthier.
The changes increase the serving sizes of fruits and vegetables and phases in whole grains over a two-year period.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0353 or at bsmith@coxinc.com.
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