Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Bag Lunch, Anyone?





(Art by Andrew Bell.)

This post is going to make lab-grown pork seem appetizing by comparison. Brace your stomachs.

Here's the first paragraph of an article published in today's USA Today:

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.

What does that mean? Here are a couple of the article's many revelations:

1. US schools are often supplied with meat from chickens so old that they would otherwise only be suitable for compost or pet food.

2. Schools can serve ground beef that contains high levels of bacteria that often indicate the presence of fecal contamination. (Yes, that is what you think it is. And it's not a good thing. At all.)

This is serious! Read more here.

48 comments:

Air is Where said...

that explains so much.

omgomgomgWhat? said...

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Well, i dont eat my school lunches anymore. In 6th Grade I was eating a hot dog, and it fell out of the bun. It bounced back up to my hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
now i no why...........

gymnast20 said...

omg eeeeeeeeeeewwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow im glad i dont get he chicken rings from my school i knew there was something wierd about them... chicken shouldnt be shaped into rings!

Esther said...

O_o
i eat school lunch everyday.
i always thought it looked like it was going to grow limbs and strangle you. except the cookies. never the cookies.
but knowing mcdonalds is better than that, i feel sick.
pretty sure i am not eating school lunches again!

montana irregulars said...

And that is one of the many resons I don't go to public school (:

Cassie said...

Thanks goodness I'm homeschooled and my mom only buys organic meat!

That is too gross...

bananaphone said...

i never want to see a paperbag agen.like the evil tomatos picter. i mean creepy!

MushroomCloud said...

i knew my school was trying 2 kill us... i haven't bought lunch since like 4th grade

Hazel said...

Oh dear. This can't be good.

Kinga said...

Ew. But I'm NOT surprised, at all. I've sort of been expecting it... I mean, I don't buy school lunches, but my friend's hot dog was.... undescribably gross- I describe it this way both for lack of a better word AND for want of keeping your stomach contents where they should be.

Al Fonzo said...

Now i'm kinda glad I know where I get my lunch, Market Day, where my parents buy stuff for our house. Hmm.... maybe thats why after I had Market Day's Bagel Dogs, I had a lot of gas..... There has only been two weired things and they both happened to me. (of course!) I've found 2 green french fries, gave then to the boys, and bought a milk that tasted like water because it was overfrozen. Now I'm glad I go to private school instead of public..... EEEEEWWWWW!!

doggy lover3 said...

I'm glad I go to private school!
It scares me to think off what I would see if my school gave lunches!! well one kid in my class handed out Cake once, and that was kind of bouncy... or maybe that was Jello. :(

Serena said...

i knew it

Gamma said...

And people wonder why kids always go for preprocessed food...

brave chickens said...

Give the bad stuff to the kids eh?

Anonymous said...

nice graphic

Clare said...

That is really sad. I don't get school lunch anymore, thank goodness...
It must be terrible for students with reduced lunch prices, about 2/3 of our school has them (I think).
Let's not get started on what's in the vegetables....

Kiwi said...

That explains soooooooo much. Our schools pizza is rock hard. The hotdogs, green. And some things, well, are just plain evil looking.

EwwwWWWwwwWWWwwwWWwwwwWWWwwwWWW!!!

Reel Dancer said...

i knew it!!! Lucky for me i eat home lunch!!!! Woot i will live!

Alice Cullen said...

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww!!!!!!!! *sticks out tongue and disinfects it will hand sanitizer* that's DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitty said...

Makes me glad I'm homeschooled D:

Anonymous said...

WHOO! I m relevd. Now i no y plp r alwys saing tha we r soooooooo luky that we hav the food we eat. I am so glad i go 2 private school. :)) But thats not tru 4 a l public scools. the public scool in alamo heights, (region in my city)has miny food stall lik things in ther cafateria, wich has food that is brught in from places like pei wei and subway.

wow. that was a long post.

Nina said...

gross, but maybe it will help us become immune to different things. Nasty, but possibly good? (I dnt eat lucnh at school anyways)

scared of a lot things... said...

Now I'm scared of my school lunches... :o
There alive,THERE ALIVE!!!
Run, man Run!

Megan said...

So that's why the hot dogs bounce... Good thing I just eat salad without any dressing or chicken on it. It's only like 8 calories!

dangerous said...

The entire subject on crappy school lunches gets me SO mad. Are our nation's children, who are SUPPORTING the freaking school be buying the lunches, so unimportant that we can just give them total crap to eat, possibly literally? Why does school food need to be disgusting and unsanitary? If anything, the school's meats, fruit, and vegetables should be HIGHER quality then anyone else's. Kids who buy lunches are paying more then a dollar (dollar menu at McDonald's, for example) to get this food, and yet it is more disgusting then in any other public eating area, other then perhaps a refugee camp, where the food is freaking FREE. No parent would want their son or daughter to eat crap that probably has little to no nutritional value, but the people who buy and sell this crap probably do have children or relatives in a public school system. And the most popular argument for giving gross school lunches is "We don't have the money." Does your school have like 6 vending machines? I'm willing to bet that it does. So buy maybe two less, maybe even charge more for lunch, and buy and sell EDIBLE freaking food!

Sorry for the novel. Grrrrrrrrr.

Esther said...

Other people say the school i go to is "the richest in the district" but its hard to believe when you see the food. Last week, a substitute was saying that he ate the chicken they had that day and didn't feel so well and had a mini rant about the lunches that were served when he was in school. It's amazing what people do for money.

Kinga said...

This isn't exactly on topic, but since Ananka is such a big fan on giant squid, I wonder if she has heard of the Vampire Squid From Hell, or Vampyroteuthis. It is shown in the deep oceans part of Planet Earth. Has anyone seen this?
FREAKY... when they showed the close up of its eye, the first time I watched it I was convinced I saw a demon child. Here is the squid from the movie on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3CJIKKSUpg

Kinga said...

I highly suspect that such food is less edible than the squid I dissected today.

Scott S. said...

oh. my. god. In my old school I dropped a hamburger in a bun and it splattered into liquid and sprayed like 10 people! My parents nearly sued the school. Needless to say, I now go to private.

omgomgomgWhat? said...

the problem with the food being bad.. is that i do go to private school.............

Toodles said...

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SAMEANONYMOUS said...

I think I just vomited a little. But i totally agree with dangerous, its horrable that they put that in what we pay good money (and alot at that) on food, in the lightest sence of the word,that barly even makes the health standered

Forrester said...

Anybody remember Great Graffiti posted on May 20th? If you don't. Look it up. Anyway, I do and I was riding in my stepmother's rented car going out of St. Louis to go to VA and we passed an abandoned JAIL building {just outside of the part of St. Louis that's a big deal} with graffiti all over it and I noticed one piece in particular. The one that said YOU GO GIRL. On a JAIL building no less! I thought this was hilarious and. being the only one that reads your your blog, I was the only one who got what was so funny.

Forrester said...

I always knew something was up. I'm serious. You can tell just by looking at the lunches. Ugh. I mean the cheese on the P. school pizza looks like rubber, and has the same texture! Also, you can't bite into school toast even if you have teeth of steel! Don't let me get into the hot dog thing even hot dogs from Wal*Mart, you don't want to know what's in them.... Also, the things I've read about about McDonald's are.... not too good. And now I find out that it's better than public school lunch!?!? *Shudder/gag* Trust me if anyone here has read the things I've read you know....... I'm serious. *second shudder from thinking about how many public school lunches I've eaten* Oh, God, and the ravioli? It look like(and I'm seriously not kidding) and smelled like..... PUKE! THey always say that teachers and principals are looking out for you but now i realize that it's like they are trying to poison you! Also the plain white milk! It tasted like it been watered down and warmed up.


Also I'm sorry for posting such a frivolous thing on this blog. I hadn't read the post yet and was dying to post that. And, do you realize how many school lunches will be consumed before the problem is corrected(if it ever is)? I say we boycott school lunches! spread the word! Email the USA today page to all people you know that have E-mail accounts! Print and copy and send to relatives, pen pals that you have in the united states or wherever else they have this problem! Send multiple copies to relatives so they can send to their pen pals and/ or E mail to their friends! Spread the word! Get it across the country! Boycott school lunches! Tell your friends! Tell your Friends' friends! Get the word out there! I take the food as a personal insult because the have promised it was healthy! They have hammered the food pyramid into our heads when they can't even maintain the standards that a five year old could! Does this insult anybody else? Who likes my idea? You all agree this is serious! But it's REALLY serious! We have been lied to our whole lives! Since Kindergarten! We need our standards! Your paying more at public schools for food that is below dog food standards than you would for a salad at Wal*Mart! Do you want to eat something a dog wouldn't be allowed to eat? Anyone going to?

sad girl said...

Alright Forrester. I'll do it.

Meredith said...

There's the answer to the mystery of the meat!

It actually doesn't surprise me. I work at McDonald's and all the meat is Grade A.

SUPERWIRED:) said...

Heck, why not? I'll do it too Forrester. BEFORE I'M POISONED TO DEATH!!!!!! Plus I hate school. The perfect revenge! *EVIL LAUGH!*

Scooter Gal said...

Geez,how much do you hate school lunch Forrester? Maybe more than me. (I didn't know that was possible.) I'll boycot the lunches. I hate 'em anyway.

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Offending Anonymous said...

I find school lunches appetizing.

Micci said...

What is with you people? You're all like, "I don't have that problem, I go to private school!" and "I'm so happy I don't have that problem!". What about the people who do? We can't all afford to go to finer schools like you do. *sob* I'm going to die!!! (or at least get very, very sick, at which point death will be very welcome)

Leaves said...

OMG i am so not EVER buying lunch @ school EVER again!!!YUCK!!!

Anonymous said...

Micci's right. SNOBS!

Claire_gymnast said...

About 1/2 of the lunches at my school involve some sort of meat. (Yick. I'm never. Buying. School. Meat. Including. Lunch. EVER.)
Also, I agree with MushroomCloud. I KNEW the evil old lunch ladies were trying to kill us in my elementary school. The hot dogs BOUNCED!!! And they had weird crusty yellow ick on them. (They must really hate my grade, because they moved up to middle school with us.)
I'm suddenly jealous of my friends with severe food allergies. They never have to worry about what's in their lunches. Their moms wouldn't attempt to kill them.
Gosh, I'm glad I only bought lunch once this year. It was pizza that tasted fine, but a simple look under the cheese proved there was raw dough.
-claire-

Claire_gymnast said...

To think the McDonald's Happy Meal that gave me food poisoning when I was six was better quality meat than the school chicken nuggets I loved in second through fourth grade. I stopped eating them after I found raw chicken in the nuggets multiple times.
-claire-

Anonymous said...

I had to do a debate on fast food, and i read that article too... if you want to know more about food horror stories, fast food nation or chew on this are the books for you!

Micci said...

Only suitable for PET FOOD?! Oh, so now we have to poison our dogs, too?