Mystery Meat

Photo Credit: Rachel Fox

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Written by Jed Springer

If you go out to the Green or Quad at lunch you have almost certainly seen kids walking around with paper trays containing a slice of pizza, a spicy chicken sandwich, or a bag of munchies. Although the notion of a hot—or at least warm—breakfast or lunch may make your stomach rumble and make your sandwich seem a bit less appealing, one cannot help but wonder where this food comes from and just what might be in it.

If you decide to become more adventurous and investigate the source of these meals, you will find long lines at one of M-A’s two “Speedway” kiosks. The food is mediocre and prices seem a bit steep. A closer look at that pizza shows that it is quite greasy and after biting into one of the Speedway’s famous “taco burritos”, the texture and quality of the ground beef may make you want to add your local hospital to the speed dial on your phone.

It turns out those questions of hygiene are well founded. According to Eric Schlosser’s landmark book Fast Food Nation, the worst, most poorly inspected meat in the country ends up in our nation’s School Lunch Program. Indeed, a recent article in USA Today found that the beef in the School Lunch Program is ten times more likely to contain a food-borne pathogen such as E. coli than the beef used at fast food restaurants such as Jack in the Box. This is due the lax inspection standards enforced by the National School Lunch Program. This disturbing data leaves us questioning whether the food many M-A students eat everyday is safe for human consumption.

The person responsible for selecting the meals served on all Sequoia Union High School District campuses is Director of Food Services Nora DeCaro. Supervising a culinary behemoth that serves 2,500 lunches and 1,500 breakfasts a day to SUHSH students is no small task. Despite the sheer scale of the operation, Ms. DeCaro maintains that her objective “is to provide foods that meet the requirements for National School Meal Programs while offering students foods they like that are nutritious and affordable”.

Many consider $3.50 for a single piece of pizza hardly “affordable”, but when one takes into account that that pizza comes with a carton of milk and a fruit or vegetable, the argument could be made that the meal is both nutritious and affordable. Moreover, Ms. DeCaro revealed that not only does the Food Service Department not make any profit, but it must be subsidized by approximately $450,000 every year. Much of this expense is due to the free and reduced cost lunch programs mandated by the National School Lunch Program.

While price may be a factor in ones decision whether or not to wait in the line at Speedway, the true concern should be the quality of the food. When asked what the source of the 12-14 different entrees featured on the Speedway menu was, Ms. DeCaro said “We receive commodity foods such as beef, chicken, cheese, etc. for the USDA [through the National School Meal Program], but we purchase all other items from reputable local food companies”.

So in other words, the food we eat at M-A is no worse and no better than the food served at every other school in the country. My advice to you, if you’re brave enough to sink your teeth into a burger or taco burrito, is that you try to forget where the food comes from and just savor the taste of ground beef, cheese, and maybe some mystery sauce.

1. Jake Meyers Says:
   February 5th, 2010 at 10:16 am

   Oh the “speedways”. I eat my spicy chicken without fail every week and not thinking about it is really the best thing to do. Great article Jed

   [Reply]