Thursday, December 10, 2009
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Fast-food standards for meat top those for school lunches
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Source: 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, 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.
For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders— KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."
"We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants," says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. "We are not using those same standards."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt "the highest standards" for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that "the disparity would exist no more."
Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department's minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers.
Morris, who used to run the USDA office that investigates food-borne illnesses, says the department's purchases of meat that doesn't satisfy higher-end commercial standards are especially worrisome because the meat goes to schools. It's not just that children are more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses because of their fledgling immune systems; it's also because there's less assurance that school cafeteria workers will cook the meat well enough to kill any pathogens that might slip through the USDA's less stringent safety checks.
USDA-purchased meat is donated to almost every school district in the country and served to 31 million students a day, 62% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals. President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are "their most nutritious meal — sometimes their only meal — of the day."
Next year, Congress will revisit the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the lunch program.
"If there are higher quality and safety standards, the government should set them," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. "Ensuring the safety of food in schools is something we'll look at closely."
Officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the USDA agency that buys meat for the school lunch program, insist that schools get top-notch products.
AMS standards for meat sent to schools have been "extremely successful in protecting against food-borne pathogens," AMS Administrator Rayne Pegg says in a written statement. She notes that AMS oversight, inspections and tests of that meat exceed those required for meat sold to the general public.
The AMS also has a "zero-tolerance" policy that requires rejection of meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7, pathogens that can cause serious illness or death.
Still, after USA TODAY presented USDA officials with its findings, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised an independent review of testing requirements for ground beef that the AMS sends to schools. The review, set for next year, is meant "to ensure the food served to our school children is as safe as possible," Vilsack says in a statement.
Tougher standards for school meat would better protect students, experts say. Today's AMS program "is a sort of snapshot of the way things were in (2000), whereas the industry has continued to clamp down," says James Marsden, a Kansas State University professor who advises the meat industry on safety. "It needs to be modernized."
The difference
USA TODAY examined about 150,000 tests on beef purchased by the AMS for the school lunch program. The agency buys more than 100 million pounds of beef a year for schools, and the vast majority of it would satisfy the standards of most commercial buyers. But USA TODAY also found cases in which the agency bought meat that retailers and fast-food chains would have rejected.
Like the AMS, many big commercial buyers reject meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7. But many fast-food chains and premium retailers set tougher limits than the AMS on so-called indicator bacteria. Although not necessarily dangerous themselves, high levels of the bacteria can suggest an increased likelihood that meat may have pathogens that tests might miss.
From 2005 to this year, the AMS purchased six orders of ground beef that exceeded the limits some commercial buyers set for indicator bacteria. The meat came from five companies: Beef Packers of Fresno, which filled two of the orders; Skylark Meats of Omaha; Duerson Foods of Pleasant Prairie, Wis.; N'Genuity Enterprises of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Palo Duro Meat Processing of Amarillo, Texas.
Palo Duro is the largest provider of ground beef to schools. Beef Packers is one of the most troubled; it has been suspended as an AMS supplier three times, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called this week for the plant to be closed temporarily in the wake of two recalls.
From late November 2008 through January this year, the AMS bought nearly 500,000 pounds of ground beef from Beef Packers and Skylark with unusually high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli." The organism is considered an indicator of whether potential contaminants from the intestines of cattle have gotten into slaughtered meat — a source of the far more dangerous E. coli O157:H7.
The indicator bacteria are measured in CFUs, or colony-forming units. Jack in the Box, which pioneered many of the safety standards now used across the fast-food industry, won't accept beef with generic E. coli levels of more than 100 CFUs per gram. The AMS, on the other hand, will buy beef for the school lunch program with generic E. coli counts of up to 1,000 CFUs per gram — 10 times the Jack in the Box limit.
"That's a significant difference," says Marsden, the professor and beef industry adviser.
The shipments of beef that the AMS bought a year ago had generic E. coli levels up to four times higher than what Jack in the Box would accept. "Most higher-end companies certainly would reject that," Marsden says. Those bacteria levels "would be a yellow light (that) something's not right."
E. coli isn't the only indicator bacteria that the AMS allows at higher levels. The government also accepts beef with more than double the limit set by many fast-food chains for total coliform, which is used to assess whether a beef producer is minimizing fecal contamination in its meat.
"We look at those (measures) to gauge how a supplier is doing," says David Theno, who developed the safety program at Jack in the Box before retiring last year. If shipments regularly exceed the company's limits on indicator bacteria, "we'd stop doing business with them," he says.
AMS officials say the differences between the agency's bacteria limits and those of private industry are inconsequential. They note that there isn't even a requirement that beef sold in a typical grocery store has to be tested for the organisms.
"We remain confident, based upon past benchmarking activities, that our testing and standards are similar to or exceed those of most major large volume buyers," AMS chief Pegg says.
Suspect samples
The biggest disparity between the AMS and other big buyers of ground beef may not be in the levels of bacteria they allow but in the effort they make to detect such contamination.
On a given manufacturing day, AMS workers testing ground beef bound for schools sample the meat eight times, regardless of how long the production lines are running. Those samples are combined into a single composite sample for testing.
Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Burger King and other more selective buyers sample the ground beef on their production lines every 15 minutes. Some, such as Jack in the Box, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every hour during the production run. Others, such as McDonald's and Burger King, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every two hours.
That means Jack in the Box would test at least 10 composite samples during a typical 10-hour production run, which could yield 100,000 pounds or more of ground beef. The AMS would test just one sample for the entire 100,000-pound run.
The AMS approach to sampling "is not robust enough to find anything," says Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle-based food safety consultant and microbiologist.
Fast-food chains aren't the only ones with better sampling. Other beef buyers, such as Costco and afa Foods, a Pennsylvania firm that supplies beef to restaurants, use similar programs.
AMS officials say the agency accounts for less frequent sampling by being more aggressive in rejecting meat that fails to meet its standards. When a test shows salmonella, for instance, the AMS rejects all the meat produced by that supplier during that production run — tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But the AMS approach doesn't resonate with some scientists.
"AMS is saying once they detect, they take drastic action," says Ewen Todd, a professor at Michigan State University, "but if they are less likely to detect, the risk is still higher."
Adds Theno: "If you do more sampling and you do it on smaller lots, you have a better chance of finding problems."
Theno helped pioneer the sampling and testing standards now used widely in the fast-food world after he arrived at Jack in the Box in the wake of the industry's most notorious safety lapse.
In 1993, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 at Jack in the Box restaurants left hundreds sick and four children dead. Victims, most from the West, won more than $50 million from the company and its suppliers. Reverberations from the event rippled across the fast-food industry.
In the aftermath, Theno says, Jack in the Box asked him to build a food safety program that would "set a new (industry) standard."
Today, most fast-food companies and premium grocery chains have safety programs built on the same pillars Theno set up at Jack in the Box: frequent sampling requirements, tight limits on indicator bacteria, and zero tolerance for dangerous pathogens.
Food safety officials from fast-food chains and other big beef buyers share ideas and information about their programs, says Dane Bernard, vice president for food safety at Keystone Foods, a ground beef supplier to McDonald's. "Our testing programs are constantly evolving. We watch the science closely."
Raising the bar
The AMS could "very easily" raise the standards for federally purchased school lunch meat, says Barry Carpenter, a former AMS official who helped set up the current sampling and testing requirements in 2000. "If I was still at AMS, I'd say, 'Where are we (with today's rules) and where do we need to tighten them?' "
Carpenter, now head of the National Meat Association, notes that raising AMS standards "wouldn't cost much," and it would help combat perceptions that the school lunch program is "a market of last resort" for meat that can't pass muster with commercial buyers.
That perception could be reinforced by the reality of how AMS makes its purchasing decision: Contracts go to the lowest qualified bidders. Orders are placed on a computer system that can be accessed by all of the agency's suppliers — those certified as able to meet the special sampling and testing requirements set for school lunch food. When an order is placed, suppliers enter bids into the system, and the computer automatically awards contracts to low bidders.
Industry experts say tougher standards would not significantly add to the agency's costs for school meat. Theno says the safety requirements set by Jack in the Box added less than a penny a pound to its beef costs. Other big buyers outside the school program say it's a worthwhile investment in safety.
"It's not about transactional cost; it's about value," says Justin Malvick, a vice president at Keystone, the McDonald's supplier.
Carpenter says the meat industry that he now represents would have no problem with a decision to modernize — and toughen — AMS standards for school lunch meat.
Most major beef suppliers and processors already have procedures in place to ensure that their products can satisfy the tougher sampling and testing requirements set by many commercial buyers, he adds. If the AMS followed, he says, "I don't think the industry would have any hiccup at all."
Some lawmakers say a change is overdue. "Why are we even looking at giving (schools) … food that wouldn't be accepted by a restaurant?," asks Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. "That's absolutely crazy."
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise
Published on 12-09-2009 Email To Friend Print Version
AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Source: 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, 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.
For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders— KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."
"We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants," says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. "We are not using those same standards."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt "the highest standards" for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that "the disparity would exist no more."
Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department's minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers.
Morris, who used to run the USDA office that investigates food-borne illnesses, says the department's purchases of meat that doesn't satisfy higher-end commercial standards are especially worrisome because the meat goes to schools. It's not just that children are more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses because of their fledgling immune systems; it's also because there's less assurance that school cafeteria workers will cook the meat well enough to kill any pathogens that might slip through the USDA's less stringent safety checks.
USDA-purchased meat is donated to almost every school district in the country and served to 31 million students a day, 62% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals. President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are "their most nutritious meal — sometimes their only meal — of the day."
Next year, Congress will revisit the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the lunch program.
"If there are higher quality and safety standards, the government should set them," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. "Ensuring the safety of food in schools is something we'll look at closely."
Officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the USDA agency that buys meat for the school lunch program, insist that schools get top-notch products.
AMS standards for meat sent to schools have been "extremely successful in protecting against food-borne pathogens," AMS Administrator Rayne Pegg says in a written statement. She notes that AMS oversight, inspections and tests of that meat exceed those required for meat sold to the general public.
The AMS also has a "zero-tolerance" policy that requires rejection of meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7, pathogens that can cause serious illness or death.
Still, after USA TODAY presented USDA officials with its findings, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised an independent review of testing requirements for ground beef that the AMS sends to schools. The review, set for next year, is meant "to ensure the food served to our school children is as safe as possible," Vilsack says in a statement.
Tougher standards for school meat would better protect students, experts say. Today's AMS program "is a sort of snapshot of the way things were in (2000), whereas the industry has continued to clamp down," says James Marsden, a Kansas State University professor who advises the meat industry on safety. "It needs to be modernized."
The difference
USA TODAY examined about 150,000 tests on beef purchased by the AMS for the school lunch program. The agency buys more than 100 million pounds of beef a year for schools, and the vast majority of it would satisfy the standards of most commercial buyers. But USA TODAY also found cases in which the agency bought meat that retailers and fast-food chains would have rejected.
Like the AMS, many big commercial buyers reject meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7. But many fast-food chains and premium retailers set tougher limits than the AMS on so-called indicator bacteria. Although not necessarily dangerous themselves, high levels of the bacteria can suggest an increased likelihood that meat may have pathogens that tests might miss.
From 2005 to this year, the AMS purchased six orders of ground beef that exceeded the limits some commercial buyers set for indicator bacteria. The meat came from five companies: Beef Packers of Fresno, which filled two of the orders; Skylark Meats of Omaha; Duerson Foods of Pleasant Prairie, Wis.; N'Genuity Enterprises of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Palo Duro Meat Processing of Amarillo, Texas.
Palo Duro is the largest provider of ground beef to schools. Beef Packers is one of the most troubled; it has been suspended as an AMS supplier three times, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called this week for the plant to be closed temporarily in the wake of two recalls.
From late November 2008 through January this year, the AMS bought nearly 500,000 pounds of ground beef from Beef Packers and Skylark with unusually high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli." The organism is considered an indicator of whether potential contaminants from the intestines of cattle have gotten into slaughtered meat — a source of the far more dangerous E. coli O157:H7.
The indicator bacteria are measured in CFUs, or colony-forming units. Jack in the Box, which pioneered many of the safety standards now used across the fast-food industry, won't accept beef with generic E. coli levels of more than 100 CFUs per gram. The AMS, on the other hand, will buy beef for the school lunch program with generic E. coli counts of up to 1,000 CFUs per gram — 10 times the Jack in the Box limit.
"That's a significant difference," says Marsden, the professor and beef industry adviser.
The shipments of beef that the AMS bought a year ago had generic E. coli levels up to four times higher than what Jack in the Box would accept. "Most higher-end companies certainly would reject that," Marsden says. Those bacteria levels "would be a yellow light (that) something's not right."
E. coli isn't the only indicator bacteria that the AMS allows at higher levels. The government also accepts beef with more than double the limit set by many fast-food chains for total coliform, which is used to assess whether a beef producer is minimizing fecal contamination in its meat.
"We look at those (measures) to gauge how a supplier is doing," says David Theno, who developed the safety program at Jack in the Box before retiring last year. If shipments regularly exceed the company's limits on indicator bacteria, "we'd stop doing business with them," he says.
AMS officials say the differences between the agency's bacteria limits and those of private industry are inconsequential. They note that there isn't even a requirement that beef sold in a typical grocery store has to be tested for the organisms.
"We remain confident, based upon past benchmarking activities, that our testing and standards are similar to or exceed those of most major large volume buyers," AMS chief Pegg says.
Suspect samples
The biggest disparity between the AMS and other big buyers of ground beef may not be in the levels of bacteria they allow but in the effort they make to detect such contamination.
On a given manufacturing day, AMS workers testing ground beef bound for schools sample the meat eight times, regardless of how long the production lines are running. Those samples are combined into a single composite sample for testing.
Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Burger King and other more selective buyers sample the ground beef on their production lines every 15 minutes. Some, such as Jack in the Box, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every hour during the production run. Others, such as McDonald's and Burger King, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every two hours.
That means Jack in the Box would test at least 10 composite samples during a typical 10-hour production run, which could yield 100,000 pounds or more of ground beef. The AMS would test just one sample for the entire 100,000-pound run.
The AMS approach to sampling "is not robust enough to find anything," says Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle-based food safety consultant and microbiologist.
Fast-food chains aren't the only ones with better sampling. Other beef buyers, such as Costco and afa Foods, a Pennsylvania firm that supplies beef to restaurants, use similar programs.
AMS officials say the agency accounts for less frequent sampling by being more aggressive in rejecting meat that fails to meet its standards. When a test shows salmonella, for instance, the AMS rejects all the meat produced by that supplier during that production run — tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But the AMS approach doesn't resonate with some scientists.
"AMS is saying once they detect, they take drastic action," says Ewen Todd, a professor at Michigan State University, "but if they are less likely to detect, the risk is still higher."
Adds Theno: "If you do more sampling and you do it on smaller lots, you have a better chance of finding problems."
Theno helped pioneer the sampling and testing standards now used widely in the fast-food world after he arrived at Jack in the Box in the wake of the industry's most notorious safety lapse.
In 1993, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 at Jack in the Box restaurants left hundreds sick and four children dead. Victims, most from the West, won more than $50 million from the company and its suppliers. Reverberations from the event rippled across the fast-food industry.
In the aftermath, Theno says, Jack in the Box asked him to build a food safety program that would "set a new (industry) standard."
Today, most fast-food companies and premium grocery chains have safety programs built on the same pillars Theno set up at Jack in the Box: frequent sampling requirements, tight limits on indicator bacteria, and zero tolerance for dangerous pathogens.
Food safety officials from fast-food chains and other big beef buyers share ideas and information about their programs, says Dane Bernard, vice president for food safety at Keystone Foods, a ground beef supplier to McDonald's. "Our testing programs are constantly evolving. We watch the science closely."
Raising the bar
The AMS could "very easily" raise the standards for federally purchased school lunch meat, says Barry Carpenter, a former AMS official who helped set up the current sampling and testing requirements in 2000. "If I was still at AMS, I'd say, 'Where are we (with today's rules) and where do we need to tighten them?' "
Carpenter, now head of the National Meat Association, notes that raising AMS standards "wouldn't cost much," and it would help combat perceptions that the school lunch program is "a market of last resort" for meat that can't pass muster with commercial buyers.
That perception could be reinforced by the reality of how AMS makes its purchasing decision: Contracts go to the lowest qualified bidders. Orders are placed on a computer system that can be accessed by all of the agency's suppliers — those certified as able to meet the special sampling and testing requirements set for school lunch food. When an order is placed, suppliers enter bids into the system, and the computer automatically awards contracts to low bidders.
Industry experts say tougher standards would not significantly add to the agency's costs for school meat. Theno says the safety requirements set by Jack in the Box added less than a penny a pound to its beef costs. Other big buyers outside the school program say it's a worthwhile investment in safety.
"It's not about transactional cost; it's about value," says Justin Malvick, a vice president at Keystone, the McDonald's supplier.
Carpenter says the meat industry that he now represents would have no problem with a decision to modernize — and toughen — AMS standards for school lunch meat.
Most major beef suppliers and processors already have procedures in place to ensure that their products can satisfy the tougher sampling and testing requirements set by many commercial buyers, he adds. If the AMS followed, he says, "I don't think the industry would have any hiccup at all."
Some lawmakers say a change is overdue. "Why are we even looking at giving (schools) … food that wouldn't be accepted by a restaurant?," asks Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. "That's absolutely crazy."
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise
Article
washingtonpost.com > Health
USDA to serve lawmakers lunches from the school cafeteria
Tasting aims to show improvements agency has made on nutritional quality
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By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 10, 2009; 12:33 PM
Chicken fajita strips, sliced ham and canned green beans: That's what's for lunch one day next week for some lawmakers and Congressional staffers, courtesy of the Department of Agriculture. The menu offers the same food -- so-called commodity food -- that the agency provides every day to public schools across the nation.
The goal of next week's special tasting is to show lawmakers the improvements the department has made in the nutritional quality -- and taste -- of the $1.2 billion of school commodity foods and to win support to fund further improvements. With one-third of U.S. children overweight of obese, a condition that may lead to life-long health problems, the USDA has been working hard to cut salt, reduce fat and provide more fruits and vegetables.
"These guys are moving in the right direction," said Tony Geraci, the food service director for Baltimore City Public Schools and a pioneer for healthful foods in schools. "Is it fixed? Hell, no. But at least now we're having conversations about this. Before, it was straight-up stonewalling."
The tasting also is an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the commodity foods program, which provides from 15 percent to 20 percent of food served in school cafeterias. Officially dubbed USDA Foods, these products have long been perceived as a conflict of interest in the Department's mission: to promote American farmers and ranchers while also overseeing nutrition programs for low-income families and children at school. Critics have asked whether such programs were a way to distribute meat, cheeses and other commodities that couldn't find a buyer on the open market? Or was the Department really making choices based on public health?
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Improving the quality of foods provided free to schools also is important at a time when school budgets are squeezed. President Obama has proposed an additional $1 billion for child nutrition programs, including school lunch, in his 2010 budget. But with a projected $1.3 trillion federal deficit, even the strongest supporters of school-lunch reform privately concede a substantial increase in funding is unlikely to pass when Congress takes up the issue next year.
In preparation for the Capitol Hill debut, the USDA offered up a tasting to Secretary Tom Vilsack, who sampled more than a dozen products such as canned green beans set out in Dixie cups, apple slices and hamburger patties. (His initial comment: "I wish I hadn't eaten such a big lunch.")
On paper anyway, the green beans looked good. The product, specially formulated to meet USDA specifications, has 64 percent less sodium than commercially available canned beans. For the 2010 school year, the agency has mandated that canned vegetables have no more than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving, 71 percent fewer than the Food and Drug Administration's "healthy" standard. The hamburger patties, developed for a 2008 pilot program to help fight childhood obesity, were 95 percent lean. The closest commercial beef patty available is 92 percent lean.
The USDA now offers more than 180 fresh and processed foods to schools, up from 54 in 1981. The foods are provided to schools free, based on the number of students eligible for government assistance. Schools buy the rest of their ingredients from commercial suppliers.
School food directors say the quality of commodities available is excellent -- if schools choose wisely. The USDA offers high-quality dried fruits, nuts, brown rice, legumes and unprocessed meat, among other things. Last month, the USDA announced that as part of the bonus commodity program, which allows the USDA to buy up surplus food to help support prices for farmers, it would make available $33 million of apples, tart cherries and dried plums. Some of the cherries will be processed into cherry-apple juice, with no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners, for schools.
At least one challenge remains, however: Persuading schools to embrace the more healthful options. Many schools lack kitchens and are at most capable of reheating prepared items. And many school food service directors do not have nutrition or culinary training. They also know that they can sell more trays of greasy pizza and french fries to students than fruits and vegetables -- a tactic that helps keep already-tight budgets in line.
As food service director Geraci says: "If you have 20,000 lunch ladies that just want to open up a box of chicken nuggets, they're going to keep making them."
To encourage more healthful choices, the USDA is awaiting help from Congress when it takes up the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act next year. As part of the legislation, lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow the Department to set strict standards for foods sold outside the lunch line. They also are considering whether and how much new money to allocate to the $12 billion annual program.
Vilsack said he is hopeful that Congress will make more funds available.
"The nutritional value of these foods is going to be a little bit more expensive," said Vilsack, who also anticipates rising costs as the program expands the number of children with access to free or reduced price meals at school. "We've been making progress on the food safety side and on the nutrition side. But to take the next steps, it's going to require more resources."
USDA to serve lawmakers lunches from the school cafeteria
Tasting aims to show improvements agency has made on nutritional quality
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Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging
» Links to this article
By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 10, 2009; 12:33 PM
Chicken fajita strips, sliced ham and canned green beans: That's what's for lunch one day next week for some lawmakers and Congressional staffers, courtesy of the Department of Agriculture. The menu offers the same food -- so-called commodity food -- that the agency provides every day to public schools across the nation.
The goal of next week's special tasting is to show lawmakers the improvements the department has made in the nutritional quality -- and taste -- of the $1.2 billion of school commodity foods and to win support to fund further improvements. With one-third of U.S. children overweight of obese, a condition that may lead to life-long health problems, the USDA has been working hard to cut salt, reduce fat and provide more fruits and vegetables.
"These guys are moving in the right direction," said Tony Geraci, the food service director for Baltimore City Public Schools and a pioneer for healthful foods in schools. "Is it fixed? Hell, no. But at least now we're having conversations about this. Before, it was straight-up stonewalling."
The tasting also is an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the commodity foods program, which provides from 15 percent to 20 percent of food served in school cafeterias. Officially dubbed USDA Foods, these products have long been perceived as a conflict of interest in the Department's mission: to promote American farmers and ranchers while also overseeing nutrition programs for low-income families and children at school. Critics have asked whether such programs were a way to distribute meat, cheeses and other commodities that couldn't find a buyer on the open market? Or was the Department really making choices based on public health?
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Improving the quality of foods provided free to schools also is important at a time when school budgets are squeezed. President Obama has proposed an additional $1 billion for child nutrition programs, including school lunch, in his 2010 budget. But with a projected $1.3 trillion federal deficit, even the strongest supporters of school-lunch reform privately concede a substantial increase in funding is unlikely to pass when Congress takes up the issue next year.
In preparation for the Capitol Hill debut, the USDA offered up a tasting to Secretary Tom Vilsack, who sampled more than a dozen products such as canned green beans set out in Dixie cups, apple slices and hamburger patties. (His initial comment: "I wish I hadn't eaten such a big lunch.")
On paper anyway, the green beans looked good. The product, specially formulated to meet USDA specifications, has 64 percent less sodium than commercially available canned beans. For the 2010 school year, the agency has mandated that canned vegetables have no more than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving, 71 percent fewer than the Food and Drug Administration's "healthy" standard. The hamburger patties, developed for a 2008 pilot program to help fight childhood obesity, were 95 percent lean. The closest commercial beef patty available is 92 percent lean.
The USDA now offers more than 180 fresh and processed foods to schools, up from 54 in 1981. The foods are provided to schools free, based on the number of students eligible for government assistance. Schools buy the rest of their ingredients from commercial suppliers.
School food directors say the quality of commodities available is excellent -- if schools choose wisely. The USDA offers high-quality dried fruits, nuts, brown rice, legumes and unprocessed meat, among other things. Last month, the USDA announced that as part of the bonus commodity program, which allows the USDA to buy up surplus food to help support prices for farmers, it would make available $33 million of apples, tart cherries and dried plums. Some of the cherries will be processed into cherry-apple juice, with no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners, for schools.
At least one challenge remains, however: Persuading schools to embrace the more healthful options. Many schools lack kitchens and are at most capable of reheating prepared items. And many school food service directors do not have nutrition or culinary training. They also know that they can sell more trays of greasy pizza and french fries to students than fruits and vegetables -- a tactic that helps keep already-tight budgets in line.
As food service director Geraci says: "If you have 20,000 lunch ladies that just want to open up a box of chicken nuggets, they're going to keep making them."
To encourage more healthful choices, the USDA is awaiting help from Congress when it takes up the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act next year. As part of the legislation, lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow the Department to set strict standards for foods sold outside the lunch line. They also are considering whether and how much new money to allocate to the $12 billion annual program.
Vilsack said he is hopeful that Congress will make more funds available.
"The nutritional value of these foods is going to be a little bit more expensive," said Vilsack, who also anticipates rising costs as the program expands the number of children with access to free or reduced price meals at school. "We've been making progress on the food safety side and on the nutrition side. But to take the next steps, it's going to require more resources."
Article
Fast-food standards for meat top those for school lunches
ABOUT THIS SERIES
Congress will soon consider ways to improve the school lunch program. This is the third part in a series that examines the safety and quality of food that children eat at school. To read earlier stories, click here.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON COMMODITIES
Schools get only 15% to 20% of their cafeteria food from the federal government, but they rely on the government for key commodities: beef, chicken, and fruits and vegetables. Here are the top three categories of federal spending for school lunch commodities in 2009:
Source: Agricultural Marketing Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
By Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Anthony DeBarros, 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, 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.
For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders— KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."
TOUGH, STRINGY: Old-hen meat fed to pets and schoolkids
TABLE: Fast-food safety rules trump those for school lunches
SALMONELLA RECALLS: Call to close meat plant for inspection
"We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants," says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. "We are not using those same standards."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt "the highest standards" for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that "the disparity would exist no more."
Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department's minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers.
Morris, who used to run the USDA office that investigates food-borne illnesses, says the department's purchases of meat that doesn't satisfy higher-end commercial standards are especially worrisome because the meat goes to schools. It's not just that children are more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses because of their fledgling immune systems; it's also because there's less assurance that school cafeteria workers will cook the meat well enough to kill any pathogens that might slip through the USDA's less stringent safety checks.
USDA-purchased meat is donated to almost every school district in the country and served to 31 million students a day, 62% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals. President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are "their most nutritious meal — sometimes their only meal — of the day."
Next year, Congress will revisit the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the lunch program.
"If there are higher quality and safety standards, the government should set them," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. "Ensuring the safety of food in schools is something we'll look at closely."
Officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the USDA agency that buys meat for the school lunch program, insist that schools get top-notch products.
AMS standards for meat sent to schools have been "extremely successful in protecting against food-borne pathogens," AMS Administrator Rayne Pegg says in a written statement. She notes that AMS oversight, inspections and tests of that meat exceed those required for meat sold to the general public.
The AMS also has a "zero-tolerance" policy that requires rejection of meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7, pathogens that can cause serious illness or death.
Still, after USA TODAY presented USDA officials with its findings, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised an independent review of testing requirements for ground beef that the AMS sends to schools. The review, set for next year, is meant "to ensure the food served to our school children is as safe as possible," Vilsack says in a statement.
Tougher standards for school meat would better protect students, experts say. Today's AMS program "is a sort of snapshot of the way things were in (2000), whereas the industry has continued to clamp down," says James Marsden, a Kansas State University professor who advises the meat industry on safety. "It needs to be modernized."
The difference
USA TODAY examined about 150,000 tests on beef purchased by the AMS for the school lunch program. The agency buys more than 100 million pounds of beef a year for schools, and the vast majority of it would satisfy the standards of most commercial buyers. But USA TODAY also found cases in which the agency bought meat that retailers and fast-food chains would have rejected.
Like the AMS, many big commercial buyers reject meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7. But many fast-food chains and premium retailers set tougher limits than the AMS on so-called indicator bacteria. Although not necessarily dangerous themselves, high levels of the bacteria can suggest an increased likelihood that meat may have pathogens that tests might miss.
From 2005 to this year, the AMS purchased six orders of ground beef that exceeded the limits some commercial buyers set for indicator bacteria. The meat came from five companies: Beef Packers of Fresno, which filled two of the orders; Skylark Meats of Omaha; Duerson Foods of Pleasant Prairie, Wis.; N'Genuity Enterprises of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Palo Duro Meat Processing of Amarillo, Texas.
Palo Duro is the largest provider of ground beef to schools. Beef Packers is one of the most troubled; it has been suspended as an AMS supplier three times, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called this week for the plant to be closed temporarily in the wake of two recalls.
From late November 2008 through January this year, the AMS bought nearly 500,000 pounds of ground beef from Beef Packers and Skylark with unusually high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli." The organism is considered an indicator of whether potential contaminants from the intestines of cattle have gotten into slaughtered meat — a source of the far more dangerous E. coli O157:H7.
The indicator bacteria are measured in CFUs, or colony-forming units. Jack in the Box, which pioneered many of the safety standards now used across the fast-food industry, won't accept beef with generic E. coli levels of more than 100 CFUs per gram. The AMS, on the other hand, will buy beef for the school lunch program with generic E. coli counts of up to 1,000 CFUs per gram — 10 times the Jack in the Box limit.
"That's a significant difference," says Marsden, the professor and beef industry adviser.
The shipments of beef that the AMS bought a year ago had generic E. coli levels up to four times higher than what Jack in the Box would accept. "Most higher-end companies certainly would reject that," Marsden says. Those bacteria levels "would be a yellow light (that) something's not right."
E. coli isn't the only indicator bacteria that the AMS allows at higher levels. The government also accepts beef with more than double the limit set by many fast-food chains for total coliform, which is used to assess whether a beef producer is minimizing fecal contamination in its meat.
"We look at those (measures) to gauge how a supplier is doing," says David Theno, who developed the safety program at Jack in the Box before retiring last year. If shipments regularly exceed the company's limits on indicator bacteria, "we'd stop doing business with them," he says.
AMS officials say the differences between the agency's bacteria limits and those of private industry are inconsequential. They note that there isn't even a requirement that beef sold in a typical grocery store has to be tested for the organisms.
"We remain confident, based upon past benchmarking activities, that our testing and standards are similar to or exceed those of most major large volume buyers," AMS chief Pegg says.
Suspect samples
The biggest disparity between the AMS and other big buyers of ground beef may not be in the levels of bacteria they allow but in the effort they make to detect such contamination.
On a given manufacturing day, AMS workers testing ground beef bound for schools sample the meat eight times, regardless of how long the production lines are running. Those samples are combined into a single composite sample for testing.
Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Burger King and other more selective buyers sample the ground beef on their production lines every 15 minutes. Some, such as Jack in the Box, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every hour during the production run. Others, such as McDonald's and Burger King, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every two hours.
That means Jack in the Box would test at least 10 composite samples during a typical 10-hour production run, which could yield 100,000 pounds or more of ground beef. The AMS would test just one sample for the entire 100,000-pound run.
The AMS approach to sampling "is not robust enough to find anything," says Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle-based food safety consultant and microbiologist.
Fast-food chains aren't the only ones with better sampling. Other beef buyers, such as Costco and afa Foods, a Pennsylvania firm that supplies beef to restaurants, use similar programs.
AMS officials say the agency accounts for less frequent sampling by being more aggressive in rejecting meat that fails to meet its standards. When a test shows salmonella, for instance, the AMS rejects all the meat produced by that supplier during that production run — tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But the AMS approach doesn't resonate with some scientists.
"AMS is saying once they detect, they take drastic action," says Ewen Todd, a professor at Michigan State University, "but if they are less likely to detect, the risk is still higher."
Adds Theno: "If you do more sampling and you do it on smaller lots, you have a better chance of finding problems."
Theno helped pioneer the sampling and testing standards now used widely in the fast-food world after he arrived at Jack in the Box in the wake of the industry's most notorious safety lapse.
In 1993, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 at Jack in the Box restaurants left hundreds sick and four children dead. Victims, most from the West, won more than $50 million from the company and its suppliers. Reverberations from the event rippled across the fast-food industry.
In the aftermath, Theno says, Jack in the Box asked him to build a food safety program that would "set a new (industry) standard."
Today, most fast-food companies and premium grocery chains have safety programs built on the same pillars Theno set up at Jack in the Box: frequent sampling requirements, tight limits on indicator bacteria, and zero tolerance for dangerous pathogens.
Food safety officials from fast-food chains and other big beef buyers share ideas and information about their programs, says Dane Bernard, vice president for food safety at Keystone Foods, a ground beef supplier to McDonald's. "Our testing programs are constantly evolving. We watch the science closely."
Raising the bar
The AMS could "very easily" raise the standards for federally purchased school lunch meat, says Barry Carpenter, a former AMS official who helped set up the current sampling and testing requirements in 2000. "If I was still at AMS, I'd say, 'Where are we (with today's rules) and where do we need to tighten them?' "
Carpenter, now head of the National Meat Association, notes that raising AMS standards "wouldn't cost much," and it would help combat perceptions that the school lunch program is "a market of last resort" for meat that can't pass muster with commercial buyers.
That perception could be reinforced by the reality of how AMS makes its purchasing decision: Contracts go to the lowest qualified bidders. Orders are placed on a computer system that can be accessed by all of the agency's suppliers — those certified as able to meet the special sampling and testing requirements set for school lunch food. When an order is placed, suppliers enter bids into the system, and the computer automatically awards contracts to low bidders.
Industry experts say tougher standards would not significantly add to the agency's costs for school meat. Theno says the safety requirements set by Jack in the Box added less than a penny a pound to its beef costs. Other big buyers outside the school program say it's a worthwhile investment in safety.
"It's not about transactional cost; it's about value," says Justin Malvick, a vice president at Keystone, the McDonald's supplier.
Carpenter says the meat industry that he now represents would have no problem with a decision to modernize — and toughen — AMS standards for school lunch meat.
Most major beef suppliers and processors already have procedures in place to ensure that their products can satisfy the tougher sampling and testing requirements set by many commercial buyers, he adds. If the AMS followed, he says, "I don't think the industry would have any hiccup at all."
Some lawmakers say a change is overdue. "Why are we even looking at giving (schools) … food that wouldn't be accepted by a restaurant?," asks Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. "That's absolutely crazy."
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise
ABOUT THIS SERIES
Congress will soon consider ways to improve the school lunch program. This is the third part in a series that examines the safety and quality of food that children eat at school. To read earlier stories, click here.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON COMMODITIES
Schools get only 15% to 20% of their cafeteria food from the federal government, but they rely on the government for key commodities: beef, chicken, and fruits and vegetables. Here are the top three categories of federal spending for school lunch commodities in 2009:
Source: Agricultural Marketing Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
By Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Anthony DeBarros, 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, 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.
For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders— KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."
TOUGH, STRINGY: Old-hen meat fed to pets and schoolkids
TABLE: Fast-food safety rules trump those for school lunches
SALMONELLA RECALLS: Call to close meat plant for inspection
"We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants," says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. "We are not using those same standards."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt "the highest standards" for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that "the disparity would exist no more."
Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department's minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers.
Morris, who used to run the USDA office that investigates food-borne illnesses, says the department's purchases of meat that doesn't satisfy higher-end commercial standards are especially worrisome because the meat goes to schools. It's not just that children are more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses because of their fledgling immune systems; it's also because there's less assurance that school cafeteria workers will cook the meat well enough to kill any pathogens that might slip through the USDA's less stringent safety checks.
USDA-purchased meat is donated to almost every school district in the country and served to 31 million students a day, 62% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals. President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are "their most nutritious meal — sometimes their only meal — of the day."
Next year, Congress will revisit the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the lunch program.
"If there are higher quality and safety standards, the government should set them," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. "Ensuring the safety of food in schools is something we'll look at closely."
Officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the USDA agency that buys meat for the school lunch program, insist that schools get top-notch products.
AMS standards for meat sent to schools have been "extremely successful in protecting against food-borne pathogens," AMS Administrator Rayne Pegg says in a written statement. She notes that AMS oversight, inspections and tests of that meat exceed those required for meat sold to the general public.
The AMS also has a "zero-tolerance" policy that requires rejection of meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7, pathogens that can cause serious illness or death.
Still, after USA TODAY presented USDA officials with its findings, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised an independent review of testing requirements for ground beef that the AMS sends to schools. The review, set for next year, is meant "to ensure the food served to our school children is as safe as possible," Vilsack says in a statement.
Tougher standards for school meat would better protect students, experts say. Today's AMS program "is a sort of snapshot of the way things were in (2000), whereas the industry has continued to clamp down," says James Marsden, a Kansas State University professor who advises the meat industry on safety. "It needs to be modernized."
The difference
USA TODAY examined about 150,000 tests on beef purchased by the AMS for the school lunch program. The agency buys more than 100 million pounds of beef a year for schools, and the vast majority of it would satisfy the standards of most commercial buyers. But USA TODAY also found cases in which the agency bought meat that retailers and fast-food chains would have rejected.
Like the AMS, many big commercial buyers reject meat that tests positive for salmonella or E. coli O157:H7. But many fast-food chains and premium retailers set tougher limits than the AMS on so-called indicator bacteria. Although not necessarily dangerous themselves, high levels of the bacteria can suggest an increased likelihood that meat may have pathogens that tests might miss.
From 2005 to this year, the AMS purchased six orders of ground beef that exceeded the limits some commercial buyers set for indicator bacteria. The meat came from five companies: Beef Packers of Fresno, which filled two of the orders; Skylark Meats of Omaha; Duerson Foods of Pleasant Prairie, Wis.; N'Genuity Enterprises of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Palo Duro Meat Processing of Amarillo, Texas.
Palo Duro is the largest provider of ground beef to schools. Beef Packers is one of the most troubled; it has been suspended as an AMS supplier three times, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called this week for the plant to be closed temporarily in the wake of two recalls.
From late November 2008 through January this year, the AMS bought nearly 500,000 pounds of ground beef from Beef Packers and Skylark with unusually high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli." The organism is considered an indicator of whether potential contaminants from the intestines of cattle have gotten into slaughtered meat — a source of the far more dangerous E. coli O157:H7.
The indicator bacteria are measured in CFUs, or colony-forming units. Jack in the Box, which pioneered many of the safety standards now used across the fast-food industry, won't accept beef with generic E. coli levels of more than 100 CFUs per gram. The AMS, on the other hand, will buy beef for the school lunch program with generic E. coli counts of up to 1,000 CFUs per gram — 10 times the Jack in the Box limit.
"That's a significant difference," says Marsden, the professor and beef industry adviser.
The shipments of beef that the AMS bought a year ago had generic E. coli levels up to four times higher than what Jack in the Box would accept. "Most higher-end companies certainly would reject that," Marsden says. Those bacteria levels "would be a yellow light (that) something's not right."
E. coli isn't the only indicator bacteria that the AMS allows at higher levels. The government also accepts beef with more than double the limit set by many fast-food chains for total coliform, which is used to assess whether a beef producer is minimizing fecal contamination in its meat.
"We look at those (measures) to gauge how a supplier is doing," says David Theno, who developed the safety program at Jack in the Box before retiring last year. If shipments regularly exceed the company's limits on indicator bacteria, "we'd stop doing business with them," he says.
AMS officials say the differences between the agency's bacteria limits and those of private industry are inconsequential. They note that there isn't even a requirement that beef sold in a typical grocery store has to be tested for the organisms.
"We remain confident, based upon past benchmarking activities, that our testing and standards are similar to or exceed those of most major large volume buyers," AMS chief Pegg says.
Suspect samples
The biggest disparity between the AMS and other big buyers of ground beef may not be in the levels of bacteria they allow but in the effort they make to detect such contamination.
On a given manufacturing day, AMS workers testing ground beef bound for schools sample the meat eight times, regardless of how long the production lines are running. Those samples are combined into a single composite sample for testing.
Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Burger King and other more selective buyers sample the ground beef on their production lines every 15 minutes. Some, such as Jack in the Box, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every hour during the production run. Others, such as McDonald's and Burger King, combine those samples to create a composite sample for testing every two hours.
That means Jack in the Box would test at least 10 composite samples during a typical 10-hour production run, which could yield 100,000 pounds or more of ground beef. The AMS would test just one sample for the entire 100,000-pound run.
The AMS approach to sampling "is not robust enough to find anything," says Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle-based food safety consultant and microbiologist.
Fast-food chains aren't the only ones with better sampling. Other beef buyers, such as Costco and afa Foods, a Pennsylvania firm that supplies beef to restaurants, use similar programs.
AMS officials say the agency accounts for less frequent sampling by being more aggressive in rejecting meat that fails to meet its standards. When a test shows salmonella, for instance, the AMS rejects all the meat produced by that supplier during that production run — tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But the AMS approach doesn't resonate with some scientists.
"AMS is saying once they detect, they take drastic action," says Ewen Todd, a professor at Michigan State University, "but if they are less likely to detect, the risk is still higher."
Adds Theno: "If you do more sampling and you do it on smaller lots, you have a better chance of finding problems."
Theno helped pioneer the sampling and testing standards now used widely in the fast-food world after he arrived at Jack in the Box in the wake of the industry's most notorious safety lapse.
In 1993, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 at Jack in the Box restaurants left hundreds sick and four children dead. Victims, most from the West, won more than $50 million from the company and its suppliers. Reverberations from the event rippled across the fast-food industry.
In the aftermath, Theno says, Jack in the Box asked him to build a food safety program that would "set a new (industry) standard."
Today, most fast-food companies and premium grocery chains have safety programs built on the same pillars Theno set up at Jack in the Box: frequent sampling requirements, tight limits on indicator bacteria, and zero tolerance for dangerous pathogens.
Food safety officials from fast-food chains and other big beef buyers share ideas and information about their programs, says Dane Bernard, vice president for food safety at Keystone Foods, a ground beef supplier to McDonald's. "Our testing programs are constantly evolving. We watch the science closely."
Raising the bar
The AMS could "very easily" raise the standards for federally purchased school lunch meat, says Barry Carpenter, a former AMS official who helped set up the current sampling and testing requirements in 2000. "If I was still at AMS, I'd say, 'Where are we (with today's rules) and where do we need to tighten them?' "
Carpenter, now head of the National Meat Association, notes that raising AMS standards "wouldn't cost much," and it would help combat perceptions that the school lunch program is "a market of last resort" for meat that can't pass muster with commercial buyers.
That perception could be reinforced by the reality of how AMS makes its purchasing decision: Contracts go to the lowest qualified bidders. Orders are placed on a computer system that can be accessed by all of the agency's suppliers — those certified as able to meet the special sampling and testing requirements set for school lunch food. When an order is placed, suppliers enter bids into the system, and the computer automatically awards contracts to low bidders.
Industry experts say tougher standards would not significantly add to the agency's costs for school meat. Theno says the safety requirements set by Jack in the Box added less than a penny a pound to its beef costs. Other big buyers outside the school program say it's a worthwhile investment in safety.
"It's not about transactional cost; it's about value," says Justin Malvick, a vice president at Keystone, the McDonald's supplier.
Carpenter says the meat industry that he now represents would have no problem with a decision to modernize — and toughen — AMS standards for school lunch meat.
Most major beef suppliers and processors already have procedures in place to ensure that their products can satisfy the tougher sampling and testing requirements set by many commercial buyers, he adds. If the AMS followed, he says, "I don't think the industry would have any hiccup at all."
Some lawmakers say a change is overdue. "Why are we even looking at giving (schools) … food that wouldn't be accepted by a restaurant?," asks Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. "That's absolutely crazy."
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise
Article
Gluten-Free Diet and Children with Autism
Published Nov 6, 2009, last updated Dec 7, 2009
What is it?
A gluten-free diet is an eating plan in which gluten (a protein found in some grains) is eliminated from the diet. Foods and drinks containing wheat, barley, rye, oats, or anything made from these grains are avoided. A gluten-free diet is often used for children with autism in combination with a casein-free diet. The casein-free diet calls for the elimination of milk protein (casein). Both diets are called elimination diets because a particular type of food is eliminated from the child’s meals and snacks (1).
Proponents of the gluten-free diet say that many children with autism have gastrointestinal difficulties that make it hard for them to digest certain grains properly. There are different possibilities for ways in which this could affect children with autism. The most studied theory is that eating gluten leads to high levels of protein by-products, called gluteomorphines, in some children with autism. These by-products may then affect behavior like a drug would. Specifically, in these children, gluteomorphines could reduce their desire for social interaction, block pain messages, and increase confusion. If gluten is taken out of the diet, the idea is that this will reduce the level of gluteomorphines, and behavior will improve as a result (2-4).
What's it like?
Parents who choose a gluten-free diet for their child must become aware of the ingredients of everything in their grocery cart. Products containing wheat, barley, rye, or oats in any form should not be purchased. Foods containing modified food starch also contain gluten, but modified corn starch does not. Maintaining a gluten-free diet can be hard to do at first because gluten is present in many prepared foods. However, parents can take a gluten-free cooking class or read a gluten-free cookbook (see Resources) to learn how to cook without gluten and still provide enough nutrition for the child (see Is it harmful?).
What is the theory behind it?
Gluten is broken down in the intestines into several by-products, including one called gluteomorphine. These by-products are much more common in the urine of children with autism than in children without autism. Some scientists have concluded that they are leaking from the intestines into the blood of these children (2, 5). Many research studies report that children with autism often have gastrointestinal problems, including intestinal leakage (5). The argument is that, if gluteomorphine is being absorbed into the general circulation in children with autism, then it could affect behavior (2-5).
In support of this theory, there is evidence that blocking at least some of the action of gluteomorphine improves the behavior of children with autism (6). Moreover, recent evidence of a genetic mutation common among children with autism has been traced to a gene involved in gastrointestinal function (7).
Does it work?
The effectiveness of elimination diets in improving the behavior of children with autism has only recently been scientifically researched (8). This research has almost always examined diets that are both casein- and gluten-free.
One well-controlled study focused on children with autism who had abnormally high protein by-products in their urine, and therefore were more likely to be sensitive to casein and gluten (see What is the theory behind it?). One group of these children was fed a strict casein- and gluten-free diet for 12 months. This group had significantly fewer autistic symptoms than the remaining children, who were not fed this diet (9).
Another well-controlled study of casein- and gluten-free diets focused on children with autism regardless of the level of protein by-products in their urine (10). Overall, the study found no significant differences in behavior between children on the elimination diet and children on regular diets, although individual parents reported behavioral improvements (10). A third well-controlled study reported no significant improvements in speech for 13 children who followed a gluten-free casein-free diet for 6 weeks (11). There were limitations in these studies, including relatively short time periods on the diet and/or small samples sizes.
Regardless, in both cases, the tested diets were casein- and gluten-free, so it is not clear whether it was the elimination of casein, gluten, or both that resulted in any improvements. A third study that did examine the effect of a gluten-free diet on the behavior of children with autism did not compare children on the elimination diet with children not on the diet (12). Therefore, even though there were improvements seen in the behavior of children on the diet, these may also have occurred over the 5 months of the study without the elimination diet
The current thinking is that there is at least some evidence showing that a gluten-free diet, when combined with a casein-free diet, can help improve the behavior of some children with autism. Although the casein-free diet combined with a gluten-free diet is popular, there is little evidence to support or refute this intervention and reviewers have determined that meaningful conclusions cannot be drawn from the existing literature (3, 4).
Is it harmful?
The major health concern for a child on a gluten-free diet is whether the child receives adequate nutrition. A recent report showed that the protein and nutrient intakes of children with autism on casein- and gluten-free diets were not different from those of children with autism on standard diets, but there was a trend towards lower calcium and copper intake in children on elimination diets (13). As a result, some researchers suggest that all children on elimination diets should be under the care of a nutritionist or physician (1).
Cost
A gluten-free diet can be expensive and difficult to follow, but as these diets become more common, the transition to the new diet becomes easier. Gluten-free versions of many favorite foods such as pasta, bread, and cookies are becoming more readily available in mainstream stores. Moreover, changes in the diet to replace breads, pastas, and other processed foods with vegetables, protein, and other whole foods are big steps toward a healthy, gluten-free diet.
Restaurants offering exclusively gluten-free meals are likely to be on the pricey side and are not common. Most restaurants will have gluten-free options on their menu (i.e. salads without croutons, fish or meat with vegetables served without bread or breading, etc.), although these choices may be limited. You may need to notify your server that you need gluten-free food choices, and they can help you choose between the available options or suggest changes to menu items.
Online sources for gluten-free cooking ingredients are also available, and some of these may be priced more affordably (see Resources ). Also, bulk or co-op buying may ease the cost of gluten-free items.
Resources
Healing Thresholds has partnered with The Gluten-Free Mall. They sell gluten-free prepackaged foods that may be convenient for some families.
The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network provides many resources to help children live with a gluten-free diet: http://www.foodallergy.org/.
Several books that might be helpful in understanding the gluten-free diet approach are:
Diet Intervention and Autism: Implementing the Gluten Free and Casein Free Diet for Autistic Children and Adults : A Practical Guide for Parents by Marilyn Le Breton and Rosemary Kessick. 2001. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
How to Eat Well Again on a Wheat, Gluten and Dairy Free Diet by F. Crosthwaite. 2006. Merton Books.
Special Diets for Special People: Understanding and Implementing a Gluten-Free and Casein-Free Diet to Aid in the Treatment of Autism and Related Developmental Disorders by Lisa S Lewis 2005. Future Horizons.
The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet by P. Compart and D. Laake. 2006. Fair Winds Press.
back to top
References
1. Murch, S. 2005. "Diet, Immunity, and Autistic Spectrum Disorders." J Pediatr. 146(5):582-584.
2. Reichelt, K.L., and A.M. Knivsberg. 2003. "Can the Pathophysiology of Autism be Explained by the Nature of the Discovered Urine Peptides?" Nutr.Neurosci. 6(1):19-28.
3. Christison, G.W., and K. Ivany. 2006. "Elimination Diets in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Any Wheat Amidst the Chaff?" J Dev Behav Pediatr. 27(2 Suppl):S162-S171.
4. Millward, C., et al. 2004. "Gluten- and Casein-Free Diets for Autistic Spectrum Disorder." Cochrane.Database.Syst.Rev. (2):CD003498.
5. Horvath K, P.J. 2002. "Autism and Gastrointestinal Symptoms." Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 4(3):251-258.
6. Elchaar, G.M., et al. 2006. "Efficacy and Safety of Naltrexone Use in Pediatric Patients with Autistic Disorder." Ann.Pharmacother. 40(6):1086-1095.
7. Campbell, D.B., et al. 2006. "A Genetic Variant that Disrupts MET Transcription is Associated with Autism." Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(45):16834-16839.
8. Millward, C., et al. 2008. "Gluten- and casein-free diets for autistic spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2008 April 16;(2):CD003498.
9. Knivsberg, A.M., et al. 2002. "A Randomised, Controlled Study of Dietary Intervention in Autistic Syndromes." Nutr.Neurosci. 5(4):251-261.
10. Elder, J., et al. 2006. "The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet in Autism: Results of a Preliminary Double Blind Clinical Trial." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36:413-420.
11. Seung H, Rogalski Y, Shankar M, Elder J. The gluten- and casein-free diet and autism: communication outcomes from a preliminary double-blind clinical trial. J Med Spch Lang Path 2007;15(4):337-5.
12. Whiteley P., et al. 1999. "A Gluten-Free Diet as an Intervention for Autism and Associated Spectrum Disorders: Preliminary Findings." Autism 3:45-65.
13. Cornish, E. 2002. "Gluten and Casein Free Diets in Autism: A Study of the Effects on Food Choice and Nutrition." J Hum.Nutr.Diet. 15(4):261-269.
Showing 1 results
Food Allergy and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Is There a Link?
Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, by Jyonouchi, H., published in 2009, summarized Sep 15, 2009
Probiotics may help to relieve gut problems in children with autism.
This review article describes proposed causes of gut problems in children with autism and describes the risks and benefits of treatments. There are a lot of data to support that children with autism have a chronic immune response in their gut. Many parents treat the gut problems with the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet even though there is not a lot of data to support the use of the diet. While there is some concern that the GFCF diet may not provide all needed vitamins to children, this concern is not backed by data. Treatment with probiotics makes sense, but it has not been proven to work in scientific studies of children with autism.
Syndrome of Allergy, Apraxia, and Malabsorption: Characterization of a Neurodevelopmental Phenotype that Responds to Omega 3 and Vitamin E Supplementation
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, by Morris, CR, and Agin MC, published in 2009, summarized Sep 4, 2009
Combined vitamin E and omega 3 therapy may help a type of verbal apraxia (speech problems) that may be caused by food allergies and nutritional problems, and could affect children with autism.
Children with verbal apraxia have trouble saying words and may have severe speech problems. Many scientists have thought that verbal apraxia is a brain disorder. This study suggests that verbal apraxia may be a result of nutritional problems. This study tested 187 children with verbal apraxia. Many of the children also had autism. All children took 400-3,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin E daily. They also took 1-3 grams of polyunsaturated fats (including omega 3 fatty acids) per day. Almost all of the families reported that the children who received vitamin E and omega 3 therapy had better speech, imitation, coordination, and eye contact. The authors also described blood test results for 26 of the children. They reported low carnitine levels, high anti-gluten antibodies, low vitamin D levels, fat absorption problems, and other results. The authors described how nutrition and metabolism might be different in some children with autism. The authors said that two major problems with this study were that they asked parents to give their own opinion of whether or not the children were getting better, and they did not use placebo controls. Even so, they said the results are very promising.
Whey Watchers and Wheat Watchers: The Case against Gluten and Casein in Autism
Nutrition in Clinical Practice, by Goday, P., published in 2008, summarized Jun 12, 2009
The potential benefits of a gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet for children with autism may not be worth the risk of poor nutrition from the restricted diet.
This author states that current studies have not shown consistent benefits of a GFCF diet for many children with autism. However, many parents currently are enthusiastic about the GFCF diet. Nutritionists think that parents should be educated about following the diet. Parents need to make sure they provide children with good overall nutrition, whether on the GFCF diet or not.
Autistic Enterocolitis: Fact or Fiction?
Can J Gastroenterol, by Galiatsatos, P., Gologan A., and Lamoureux E., published in 2009, summarized May 14, 2009
Early studies suggest that there is a connection between gut problems and brain problems in people with autism.
Patients with autism may complain of pain, bloating, and/or diarrhea. These gut problems cannot be described simply as Crohn's disease. This case study describes two patients with autism and problems in the gut. Some people think that the gut problems are caused by an immune response to proteins in the diet. Autism patients and their families often report that special diets such as gluten-free and casein-free diets help with gut problems and symptoms of autism. The authors suggest that doctors refer patients with autism for a work-up and treatment of gut symptoms.
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Showing 1-4 of 32 results
Regional Autism Recovery Center Opens in West Virginia
Nov 20, 2009
Dr. Janet Lintala, a DAN! doctor, has seen results in children with autism who utilize her Autism Recovery Resource Center in West Virginia. Dr. Lintala opened the biomedically focused clinic in 2008, and is now receiving children from all over the region. Therapies included at the clinic are: gluten-free and casein-free diets, mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy, antifungal therapy, detoxification therapies, and other therapies to strengthen the immune system. In addition, there are lab facilities to test stool, urine, hair and blood. Dr. Lintala suggests that no one therapy is the answer for a child with autism, and says, "We encourage parents to explore options that will help their child, such as speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, applied behavioral analysis, behavioral therapy and others." Dr. Lintala's goal is a "multi-specialty, state-of-the art regional center where families can find everything from a diagnosis to educational materials; . . . where a cure is offered."
Read original article.
Community Resources Help Teenager Who is "Differently-Abled"
Apr 6, 2009
A Florida teenager, diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDDNOS), has benefited from community resources developed by his parents and other parents of children with autism. These parents had fewer resources 12-18 years ago than parents do now, so they learned and taught each other about early intervention, speech therapy, occupational therapy, mainstreaming, and RDI. Currently, the number of resources in this Florida community is flourishing: Child Find , Exceptional Education and Student Services, and the Central Florida Autism Institute (CFAII), among others.
Read original article.
Grandparents Learn to Support Their Grandchildren with Autism
Nov 5, 2008
The Autism Society of Oregon (ASO) has formed the group - Grandparents of Autistic Individuals Need Support (GAINS). Many grandparents provide respite care for children with autism and want to learn more about the spectrum and therapies. Grandparents have expressed interest in learning more about individualized education plans (IEPs) and casein-free and gluten-free diets. Genevieve Athen, the executive director of the ASO, who founded GAINS hopes that "grandparents will continue to explore aspects of current research, sensory and therapy issues, potential careers, and problems relating to the transition to adulthood."
Read original article.
Gluten- and Casein-Free Diet Helped Child's Autism Symptoms
Oct 16, 2008
When the Kilpatricks of Texas learned their son had autism, they were determined that "The outcome is going to be the very best that we can make happen for this child." Along with behavioral therapy like ABA and physical therapy, they put their son on a gluten-free and casein-free diet supplemented with vitamins. Their son's speech improved quickly and his motor skills soon followed. The Kilpatricks and their doctor are convinced that early intervention played a large role in the success of the dietary intervention.
Read original article.
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Please comment on this autism topic.
Nutrition and Essential Fatty Acids May Help Verbal Apraxia and Autism
Dec 2, 2009 by Anonymous
Can nutrition help verbal skills in children with autism? A study reported the August 2009 issue of Alternative Therapies says yes, for some children. Combined vitamin E and omega 3 therapy may help a type of verbal apraxia (a type of speech problem) that may be linked to food allergies and nutritional problems.
Children with verbal apraxia have trouble pronouncing words and may have severe speech problems. Many scientists have thought that verbal apraxia is a brain disorder. This study suggests that verbal apraxia may also be related to metabolism differences and nutritional problems.
Metabolism is the process of making energy from food. Metabolism is a complex system of enzymes, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that work together to digest food and turn it into energy that the body can use. People likely have a wide range of metabolic differences. Some of those differences can be quite large for some individuals. In this study, they suggest that some children with autism may have metabolism differences that affect how they process foods, and how their brain works.
What did the study show? This study tested 187 children with verbal apraxia, and many of them also had autism. All of the children took 400-3,000 International Units of vitamin E daily. They also took 1-3 grams of polyunsaturated fats (including omega 3 fatty acids) per day.
Almost all of the families (97%) reported improvements in speech, imitation, coordination, eye contact, and other skills with vitamin E and omega-3 therapy. There were few side effects reported during the length of the study.
The authors also described blood test results for nutritional information about 26 of the children. They reported low carnitine levels, high anti-gluten antibodies (suggesting a gluten allergy), low vitamin D levels, and fat absorption problems in most of the children they tested. They described how nutrition and metabolism might be different in some children with autism.
What do these results mean for children with verbal apraxia and autism? The results are exciting because 97% of the children showed improvements, and there were few side effects. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? But it’s not quite as perfect as it sounds.
There are some major limitations of this study. First of all, the researchers asked parents to give their subjective opinion of improvements. The parents knew they were in a study. Although they were given specific improvements to look for, there is a possibility of bias in favor of reporting a good result.
Secondly, they did not use placebo controls. All of the parents and children knew they were getting the supplements. There is the possibility of the “placebo effect” which is when people taking placebo (“sugar pills”) report feeling better or actually show improvements. Many think it is the power of the mind/body connection that somehow influences how they feel or even how their body physically responds. There is scientific evidence for brain connections to the immune and endocrine systems to support these observations. It is possible that, in this study, the children and/or parents were hopeful that the supplements would work, and that influenced the outcome. There was a placebo effect observed in a recent study of citalopram and autism in children.
Third, the supplements may be helpful for only a subset of children with verbal apraxia. The researchers chose children with verbal apraxia who also had metabolism differences….
What is the bottom line for omega-3 and vitamin E from this study? In spite of the shortcomings of this study, the results are very promising. Children with verbal apraxia may benefit from vitamin E and omega-3 supplements, which may get their metabolism on a better track. And researchers will continue to explore the nutrition/metabolism link with brain function. Good nutrition is likely to be important for many brain functions, not just verbal apraxia.
Responding to gluten-free diet
Dec 2, 2009 by Anonymous
test
Starting a gluten free diet
Oct 7, 2009 by Anonymous
I think that it is good to purchase a book describing a GF diet before embarking on the diet. You may also want to consult with a nutritionist who can advise you on how to modify your family’s current eating to make it GFCF. You can also look to find another mom in your community who is doing it. Many of my mom friends are GFCF. I think if you hang out with another mom who is making those choices, you will realize that it is not so hard.
I (and others) can answer your questions online, but you may have to see it in practice in order for it to seem less intimidating.
In my experience, there are three approaches. My approach is to give up processed food and shop the periphery of the grocery and get food from farmer’s market/local farms. I serve protein, vegetables, and fruit. I cook every night and serve simple tasty food. This is relatively easy and works for me.
Other moms are very impressive and do what I do plus they bake fabulous things using nut flours, etc. I have tea once a week with a good friend who bakes the most extraordinary GFCF muffins. She does this every morning for her family!
The third category is represented by Jenny McCarthy. Sure, she serves her kid fruit and stuff, but mostly she seems to rely upon GFCF processed foods that are available in Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and specialty grocery stores.
You probably need to figure out where you fit in these three categories and then just give it a try.
Casein free and gluten free diet
May 17, 2009 by Anonymous
I have an autistic son age 5. He is very special in his own way and he is very special in my heart. For the last one year the doctor advised me to have a CFGF diets which is very hard for me to enforce. He is very intelligent that he will try to grab and find the bread, yogurt or other foods that he is prevented without my knowledge even I have tried so hard to hide it somewhere else. I have tried my best to stop all the casein and gluten products from him but not 100%. I just want to discuss, is the diet is very important for him?? What should I do to control the diet?
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Please comment on gluten-free diet or other autism therapy topics.
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Synonyms for gluten-free diet include: gluten, gluten free, gluten free diet, gluten-free
Published Nov 6, 2009, last updated Dec 7, 2009
What is it?
A gluten-free diet is an eating plan in which gluten (a protein found in some grains) is eliminated from the diet. Foods and drinks containing wheat, barley, rye, oats, or anything made from these grains are avoided. A gluten-free diet is often used for children with autism in combination with a casein-free diet. The casein-free diet calls for the elimination of milk protein (casein). Both diets are called elimination diets because a particular type of food is eliminated from the child’s meals and snacks (1).
Proponents of the gluten-free diet say that many children with autism have gastrointestinal difficulties that make it hard for them to digest certain grains properly. There are different possibilities for ways in which this could affect children with autism. The most studied theory is that eating gluten leads to high levels of protein by-products, called gluteomorphines, in some children with autism. These by-products may then affect behavior like a drug would. Specifically, in these children, gluteomorphines could reduce their desire for social interaction, block pain messages, and increase confusion. If gluten is taken out of the diet, the idea is that this will reduce the level of gluteomorphines, and behavior will improve as a result (2-4).
What's it like?
Parents who choose a gluten-free diet for their child must become aware of the ingredients of everything in their grocery cart. Products containing wheat, barley, rye, or oats in any form should not be purchased. Foods containing modified food starch also contain gluten, but modified corn starch does not. Maintaining a gluten-free diet can be hard to do at first because gluten is present in many prepared foods. However, parents can take a gluten-free cooking class or read a gluten-free cookbook (see Resources) to learn how to cook without gluten and still provide enough nutrition for the child (see Is it harmful?).
What is the theory behind it?
Gluten is broken down in the intestines into several by-products, including one called gluteomorphine. These by-products are much more common in the urine of children with autism than in children without autism. Some scientists have concluded that they are leaking from the intestines into the blood of these children (2, 5). Many research studies report that children with autism often have gastrointestinal problems, including intestinal leakage (5). The argument is that, if gluteomorphine is being absorbed into the general circulation in children with autism, then it could affect behavior (2-5).
In support of this theory, there is evidence that blocking at least some of the action of gluteomorphine improves the behavior of children with autism (6). Moreover, recent evidence of a genetic mutation common among children with autism has been traced to a gene involved in gastrointestinal function (7).
Does it work?
The effectiveness of elimination diets in improving the behavior of children with autism has only recently been scientifically researched (8). This research has almost always examined diets that are both casein- and gluten-free.
One well-controlled study focused on children with autism who had abnormally high protein by-products in their urine, and therefore were more likely to be sensitive to casein and gluten (see What is the theory behind it?). One group of these children was fed a strict casein- and gluten-free diet for 12 months. This group had significantly fewer autistic symptoms than the remaining children, who were not fed this diet (9).
Another well-controlled study of casein- and gluten-free diets focused on children with autism regardless of the level of protein by-products in their urine (10). Overall, the study found no significant differences in behavior between children on the elimination diet and children on regular diets, although individual parents reported behavioral improvements (10). A third well-controlled study reported no significant improvements in speech for 13 children who followed a gluten-free casein-free diet for 6 weeks (11). There were limitations in these studies, including relatively short time periods on the diet and/or small samples sizes.
Regardless, in both cases, the tested diets were casein- and gluten-free, so it is not clear whether it was the elimination of casein, gluten, or both that resulted in any improvements. A third study that did examine the effect of a gluten-free diet on the behavior of children with autism did not compare children on the elimination diet with children not on the diet (12). Therefore, even though there were improvements seen in the behavior of children on the diet, these may also have occurred over the 5 months of the study without the elimination diet
The current thinking is that there is at least some evidence showing that a gluten-free diet, when combined with a casein-free diet, can help improve the behavior of some children with autism. Although the casein-free diet combined with a gluten-free diet is popular, there is little evidence to support or refute this intervention and reviewers have determined that meaningful conclusions cannot be drawn from the existing literature (3, 4).
Is it harmful?
The major health concern for a child on a gluten-free diet is whether the child receives adequate nutrition. A recent report showed that the protein and nutrient intakes of children with autism on casein- and gluten-free diets were not different from those of children with autism on standard diets, but there was a trend towards lower calcium and copper intake in children on elimination diets (13). As a result, some researchers suggest that all children on elimination diets should be under the care of a nutritionist or physician (1).
Cost
A gluten-free diet can be expensive and difficult to follow, but as these diets become more common, the transition to the new diet becomes easier. Gluten-free versions of many favorite foods such as pasta, bread, and cookies are becoming more readily available in mainstream stores. Moreover, changes in the diet to replace breads, pastas, and other processed foods with vegetables, protein, and other whole foods are big steps toward a healthy, gluten-free diet.
Restaurants offering exclusively gluten-free meals are likely to be on the pricey side and are not common. Most restaurants will have gluten-free options on their menu (i.e. salads without croutons, fish or meat with vegetables served without bread or breading, etc.), although these choices may be limited. You may need to notify your server that you need gluten-free food choices, and they can help you choose between the available options or suggest changes to menu items.
Online sources for gluten-free cooking ingredients are also available, and some of these may be priced more affordably (see Resources ). Also, bulk or co-op buying may ease the cost of gluten-free items.
Resources
Healing Thresholds has partnered with The Gluten-Free Mall. They sell gluten-free prepackaged foods that may be convenient for some families.
The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network provides many resources to help children live with a gluten-free diet: http://www.foodallergy.org/.
Several books that might be helpful in understanding the gluten-free diet approach are:
Diet Intervention and Autism: Implementing the Gluten Free and Casein Free Diet for Autistic Children and Adults : A Practical Guide for Parents by Marilyn Le Breton and Rosemary Kessick. 2001. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
How to Eat Well Again on a Wheat, Gluten and Dairy Free Diet by F. Crosthwaite. 2006. Merton Books.
Special Diets for Special People: Understanding and Implementing a Gluten-Free and Casein-Free Diet to Aid in the Treatment of Autism and Related Developmental Disorders by Lisa S Lewis 2005. Future Horizons.
The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet by P. Compart and D. Laake. 2006. Fair Winds Press.
back to top
References
1. Murch, S. 2005. "Diet, Immunity, and Autistic Spectrum Disorders." J Pediatr. 146(5):582-584.
2. Reichelt, K.L., and A.M. Knivsberg. 2003. "Can the Pathophysiology of Autism be Explained by the Nature of the Discovered Urine Peptides?" Nutr.Neurosci. 6(1):19-28.
3. Christison, G.W., and K. Ivany. 2006. "Elimination Diets in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Any Wheat Amidst the Chaff?" J Dev Behav Pediatr. 27(2 Suppl):S162-S171.
4. Millward, C., et al. 2004. "Gluten- and Casein-Free Diets for Autistic Spectrum Disorder." Cochrane.Database.Syst.Rev. (2):CD003498.
5. Horvath K, P.J. 2002. "Autism and Gastrointestinal Symptoms." Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 4(3):251-258.
6. Elchaar, G.M., et al. 2006. "Efficacy and Safety of Naltrexone Use in Pediatric Patients with Autistic Disorder." Ann.Pharmacother. 40(6):1086-1095.
7. Campbell, D.B., et al. 2006. "A Genetic Variant that Disrupts MET Transcription is Associated with Autism." Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(45):16834-16839.
8. Millward, C., et al. 2008. "Gluten- and casein-free diets for autistic spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2008 April 16;(2):CD003498.
9. Knivsberg, A.M., et al. 2002. "A Randomised, Controlled Study of Dietary Intervention in Autistic Syndromes." Nutr.Neurosci. 5(4):251-261.
10. Elder, J., et al. 2006. "The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet in Autism: Results of a Preliminary Double Blind Clinical Trial." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36:413-420.
11. Seung H, Rogalski Y, Shankar M, Elder J. The gluten- and casein-free diet and autism: communication outcomes from a preliminary double-blind clinical trial. J Med Spch Lang Path 2007;15(4):337-5.
12. Whiteley P., et al. 1999. "A Gluten-Free Diet as an Intervention for Autism and Associated Spectrum Disorders: Preliminary Findings." Autism 3:45-65.
13. Cornish, E. 2002. "Gluten and Casein Free Diets in Autism: A Study of the Effects on Food Choice and Nutrition." J Hum.Nutr.Diet. 15(4):261-269.
Showing 1 results
Food Allergy and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Is There a Link?
Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, by Jyonouchi, H., published in 2009, summarized Sep 15, 2009
Probiotics may help to relieve gut problems in children with autism.
This review article describes proposed causes of gut problems in children with autism and describes the risks and benefits of treatments. There are a lot of data to support that children with autism have a chronic immune response in their gut. Many parents treat the gut problems with the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet even though there is not a lot of data to support the use of the diet. While there is some concern that the GFCF diet may not provide all needed vitamins to children, this concern is not backed by data. Treatment with probiotics makes sense, but it has not been proven to work in scientific studies of children with autism.
Syndrome of Allergy, Apraxia, and Malabsorption: Characterization of a Neurodevelopmental Phenotype that Responds to Omega 3 and Vitamin E Supplementation
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, by Morris, CR, and Agin MC, published in 2009, summarized Sep 4, 2009
Combined vitamin E and omega 3 therapy may help a type of verbal apraxia (speech problems) that may be caused by food allergies and nutritional problems, and could affect children with autism.
Children with verbal apraxia have trouble saying words and may have severe speech problems. Many scientists have thought that verbal apraxia is a brain disorder. This study suggests that verbal apraxia may be a result of nutritional problems. This study tested 187 children with verbal apraxia. Many of the children also had autism. All children took 400-3,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin E daily. They also took 1-3 grams of polyunsaturated fats (including omega 3 fatty acids) per day. Almost all of the families reported that the children who received vitamin E and omega 3 therapy had better speech, imitation, coordination, and eye contact. The authors also described blood test results for 26 of the children. They reported low carnitine levels, high anti-gluten antibodies, low vitamin D levels, fat absorption problems, and other results. The authors described how nutrition and metabolism might be different in some children with autism. The authors said that two major problems with this study were that they asked parents to give their own opinion of whether or not the children were getting better, and they did not use placebo controls. Even so, they said the results are very promising.
Whey Watchers and Wheat Watchers: The Case against Gluten and Casein in Autism
Nutrition in Clinical Practice, by Goday, P., published in 2008, summarized Jun 12, 2009
The potential benefits of a gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet for children with autism may not be worth the risk of poor nutrition from the restricted diet.
This author states that current studies have not shown consistent benefits of a GFCF diet for many children with autism. However, many parents currently are enthusiastic about the GFCF diet. Nutritionists think that parents should be educated about following the diet. Parents need to make sure they provide children with good overall nutrition, whether on the GFCF diet or not.
Autistic Enterocolitis: Fact or Fiction?
Can J Gastroenterol, by Galiatsatos, P., Gologan A., and Lamoureux E., published in 2009, summarized May 14, 2009
Early studies suggest that there is a connection between gut problems and brain problems in people with autism.
Patients with autism may complain of pain, bloating, and/or diarrhea. These gut problems cannot be described simply as Crohn's disease. This case study describes two patients with autism and problems in the gut. Some people think that the gut problems are caused by an immune response to proteins in the diet. Autism patients and their families often report that special diets such as gluten-free and casein-free diets help with gut problems and symptoms of autism. The authors suggest that doctors refer patients with autism for a work-up and treatment of gut symptoms.
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Regional Autism Recovery Center Opens in West Virginia
Nov 20, 2009
Dr. Janet Lintala, a DAN! doctor, has seen results in children with autism who utilize her Autism Recovery Resource Center in West Virginia. Dr. Lintala opened the biomedically focused clinic in 2008, and is now receiving children from all over the region. Therapies included at the clinic are: gluten-free and casein-free diets, mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy, antifungal therapy, detoxification therapies, and other therapies to strengthen the immune system. In addition, there are lab facilities to test stool, urine, hair and blood. Dr. Lintala suggests that no one therapy is the answer for a child with autism, and says, "We encourage parents to explore options that will help their child, such as speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, applied behavioral analysis, behavioral therapy and others." Dr. Lintala's goal is a "multi-specialty, state-of-the art regional center where families can find everything from a diagnosis to educational materials; . . . where a cure is offered."
Read original article.
Community Resources Help Teenager Who is "Differently-Abled"
Apr 6, 2009
A Florida teenager, diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDDNOS), has benefited from community resources developed by his parents and other parents of children with autism. These parents had fewer resources 12-18 years ago than parents do now, so they learned and taught each other about early intervention, speech therapy, occupational therapy, mainstreaming, and RDI. Currently, the number of resources in this Florida community is flourishing: Child Find , Exceptional Education and Student Services, and the Central Florida Autism Institute (CFAII), among others.
Read original article.
Grandparents Learn to Support Their Grandchildren with Autism
Nov 5, 2008
The Autism Society of Oregon (ASO) has formed the group - Grandparents of Autistic Individuals Need Support (GAINS). Many grandparents provide respite care for children with autism and want to learn more about the spectrum and therapies. Grandparents have expressed interest in learning more about individualized education plans (IEPs) and casein-free and gluten-free diets. Genevieve Athen, the executive director of the ASO, who founded GAINS hopes that "grandparents will continue to explore aspects of current research, sensory and therapy issues, potential careers, and problems relating to the transition to adulthood."
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Gluten- and Casein-Free Diet Helped Child's Autism Symptoms
Oct 16, 2008
When the Kilpatricks of Texas learned their son had autism, they were determined that "The outcome is going to be the very best that we can make happen for this child." Along with behavioral therapy like ABA and physical therapy, they put their son on a gluten-free and casein-free diet supplemented with vitamins. Their son's speech improved quickly and his motor skills soon followed. The Kilpatricks and their doctor are convinced that early intervention played a large role in the success of the dietary intervention.
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Please comment on this autism topic.
Nutrition and Essential Fatty Acids May Help Verbal Apraxia and Autism
Dec 2, 2009 by Anonymous
Can nutrition help verbal skills in children with autism? A study reported the August 2009 issue of Alternative Therapies says yes, for some children. Combined vitamin E and omega 3 therapy may help a type of verbal apraxia (a type of speech problem) that may be linked to food allergies and nutritional problems.
Children with verbal apraxia have trouble pronouncing words and may have severe speech problems. Many scientists have thought that verbal apraxia is a brain disorder. This study suggests that verbal apraxia may also be related to metabolism differences and nutritional problems.
Metabolism is the process of making energy from food. Metabolism is a complex system of enzymes, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that work together to digest food and turn it into energy that the body can use. People likely have a wide range of metabolic differences. Some of those differences can be quite large for some individuals. In this study, they suggest that some children with autism may have metabolism differences that affect how they process foods, and how their brain works.
What did the study show? This study tested 187 children with verbal apraxia, and many of them also had autism. All of the children took 400-3,000 International Units of vitamin E daily. They also took 1-3 grams of polyunsaturated fats (including omega 3 fatty acids) per day.
Almost all of the families (97%) reported improvements in speech, imitation, coordination, eye contact, and other skills with vitamin E and omega-3 therapy. There were few side effects reported during the length of the study.
The authors also described blood test results for nutritional information about 26 of the children. They reported low carnitine levels, high anti-gluten antibodies (suggesting a gluten allergy), low vitamin D levels, and fat absorption problems in most of the children they tested. They described how nutrition and metabolism might be different in some children with autism.
What do these results mean for children with verbal apraxia and autism? The results are exciting because 97% of the children showed improvements, and there were few side effects. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? But it’s not quite as perfect as it sounds.
There are some major limitations of this study. First of all, the researchers asked parents to give their subjective opinion of improvements. The parents knew they were in a study. Although they were given specific improvements to look for, there is a possibility of bias in favor of reporting a good result.
Secondly, they did not use placebo controls. All of the parents and children knew they were getting the supplements. There is the possibility of the “placebo effect” which is when people taking placebo (“sugar pills”) report feeling better or actually show improvements. Many think it is the power of the mind/body connection that somehow influences how they feel or even how their body physically responds. There is scientific evidence for brain connections to the immune and endocrine systems to support these observations. It is possible that, in this study, the children and/or parents were hopeful that the supplements would work, and that influenced the outcome. There was a placebo effect observed in a recent study of citalopram and autism in children.
Third, the supplements may be helpful for only a subset of children with verbal apraxia. The researchers chose children with verbal apraxia who also had metabolism differences….
What is the bottom line for omega-3 and vitamin E from this study? In spite of the shortcomings of this study, the results are very promising. Children with verbal apraxia may benefit from vitamin E and omega-3 supplements, which may get their metabolism on a better track. And researchers will continue to explore the nutrition/metabolism link with brain function. Good nutrition is likely to be important for many brain functions, not just verbal apraxia.
Responding to gluten-free diet
Dec 2, 2009 by Anonymous
test
Starting a gluten free diet
Oct 7, 2009 by Anonymous
I think that it is good to purchase a book describing a GF diet before embarking on the diet. You may also want to consult with a nutritionist who can advise you on how to modify your family’s current eating to make it GFCF. You can also look to find another mom in your community who is doing it. Many of my mom friends are GFCF. I think if you hang out with another mom who is making those choices, you will realize that it is not so hard.
I (and others) can answer your questions online, but you may have to see it in practice in order for it to seem less intimidating.
In my experience, there are three approaches. My approach is to give up processed food and shop the periphery of the grocery and get food from farmer’s market/local farms. I serve protein, vegetables, and fruit. I cook every night and serve simple tasty food. This is relatively easy and works for me.
Other moms are very impressive and do what I do plus they bake fabulous things using nut flours, etc. I have tea once a week with a good friend who bakes the most extraordinary GFCF muffins. She does this every morning for her family!
The third category is represented by Jenny McCarthy. Sure, she serves her kid fruit and stuff, but mostly she seems to rely upon GFCF processed foods that are available in Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and specialty grocery stores.
You probably need to figure out where you fit in these three categories and then just give it a try.
Casein free and gluten free diet
May 17, 2009 by Anonymous
I have an autistic son age 5. He is very special in his own way and he is very special in my heart. For the last one year the doctor advised me to have a CFGF diets which is very hard for me to enforce. He is very intelligent that he will try to grab and find the bread, yogurt or other foods that he is prevented without my knowledge even I have tried so hard to hide it somewhere else. I have tried my best to stop all the casein and gluten products from him but not 100%. I just want to discuss, is the diet is very important for him?? What should I do to control the diet?
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Synonyms for gluten-free diet include: gluten, gluten free, gluten free diet, gluten-free
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Search Whole Foods Market Site
Get involved to support your school
Five Easy Steps to Support Your School
School lunch affects every community, and with just a little extra effort we can all work together to make it better. Take action now to bring better meals to a district or school in your neighborhood.
1.
Step 1: Perform a school district wellness check
2.
Since 2006, every school district is required to provide a wellness policy to outline their approach to meal programs, nutrition and physical activity. Request a copy of this policy and read it.
3.
Step 2: Get a taste of reality
4.
Eat lunch at your local school to get a taste of what kids are really eating. Is this how you want kids in your community to be fed? Is it food you would want to eat? Does it align with the district’s wellness policy?
5.
Step 3: Build awareness
6.
Share your concerns about the local school food with the school board, administrators, teachers and others in your community. Get the attention of concerned parents, many of whom may not even realize what their kids are eating at school. Organize a coalition of people who care and meet regularly to divvy up the effort to mobilize more people.
7.
Step 4: Get the word out
8.
There are so many ways to disseminate information, mobilize and energize your community around this issue!
* Contact local media.
* Write to legislators. Vote.
* Email everyone you know a link to this website.
* Create an online community people can join.
* Encourage people to donate to The Lunch Box online or at Whole Foods Market stores.
* Urge people to watch our videos.
* Organize a local screening of a documentary about school lunch.
* Get creative about other ways to build excitement.
9.
Step 5: Pitch In
10.
School lunch reform is a big job. Few schools have the resources to do it alone. Join Whole Foods Market to support this effort, check out our friends who support healthy school lunches, and get involved at your local school. Volunteer to teach a cooking class or help plant and maintain a school garden. Talk to teachers and administrators about your own ideas for incorporating hands-on food experiences into the usual curriculum.
See Advocates and Resources for more information.
* Stores
* Products
* Recipes
* Health & Nutrition
* Values
* Company
* Forums
Search Whole Foods Market Site
Get involved to support your school
Five Easy Steps to Support Your School
School lunch affects every community, and with just a little extra effort we can all work together to make it better. Take action now to bring better meals to a district or school in your neighborhood.
1.
Step 1: Perform a school district wellness check
2.
Since 2006, every school district is required to provide a wellness policy to outline their approach to meal programs, nutrition and physical activity. Request a copy of this policy and read it.
3.
Step 2: Get a taste of reality
4.
Eat lunch at your local school to get a taste of what kids are really eating. Is this how you want kids in your community to be fed? Is it food you would want to eat? Does it align with the district’s wellness policy?
5.
Step 3: Build awareness
6.
Share your concerns about the local school food with the school board, administrators, teachers and others in your community. Get the attention of concerned parents, many of whom may not even realize what their kids are eating at school. Organize a coalition of people who care and meet regularly to divvy up the effort to mobilize more people.
7.
Step 4: Get the word out
8.
There are so many ways to disseminate information, mobilize and energize your community around this issue!
* Contact local media.
* Write to legislators. Vote.
* Email everyone you know a link to this website.
* Create an online community people can join.
* Encourage people to donate to The Lunch Box online or at Whole Foods Market stores.
* Urge people to watch our videos.
* Organize a local screening of a documentary about school lunch.
* Get creative about other ways to build excitement.
9.
Step 5: Pitch In
10.
School lunch reform is a big job. Few schools have the resources to do it alone. Join Whole Foods Market to support this effort, check out our friends who support healthy school lunches, and get involved at your local school. Volunteer to teach a cooking class or help plant and maintain a school garden. Talk to teachers and administrators about your own ideas for incorporating hands-on food experiences into the usual curriculum.
See Advocates and Resources for more information.
We Eat
From the rations soldiers are eating in Iraq to the most expensive pizza we could find, GOOD looks at the meals of America.
School Lunch
1. CHICKEN and BROCCOLI
Pasadena High School
The healthiest school lunch we could find: chicken with broccoli, carrots, and white rice, with three pieces of fruit for dessert and a carton of 2-percent milk to wash it all down.
The Department of Agriculture has not changed rules about the nutritional content of federally subsidized school lunches in 30 years.
The National School Lunch Program served more than 5 billion lunches in 2007.
Fewer than one-third of public school lunches meet the USDA standards for total fat or saturated fat.
The average cost of a lunch for the last school year was $1.80.
Federal law prohibits the sale of soda in school cafeterias during the lunch period.
More than half the states have adopted new rules limiting what food and drinks kids have access to at schools.
The percentage of high schools with vending machines has doubled since the early 1990s.
Twenty states received failing grades for their school food policies.
Super-Gourmet
2. OSETRA PIZZA
Hidden
This pizza costs $250 at Hidden, in Santa Monica, California. Justifying the hefty price tag are the crème fraîche, marinated lobster carpaccio, and Beluga caviar that adorn the wafer-thin crust. Glass of Nero d’Avola not included.
Full-service restaurants are a $558-billion industry in the United States.
The restaurant business employs 13.1 million Americans—more people than any other industry in the country, except the government.
Eighty percent of Americans think going out to a restaurant is a better use of their leisure time than cooking and cleaning.
In 2005, the average American spent $1,054 on restaurant meals.The highest grossing independent restaurant in the country is Tao Las Vegas—which raked in $55.2 million during 2006, its first full year open.
Fast Food
3. CLASSIC CHICKEN DINNER
Popeyes
Behold a classic: a three-piece Popeyes meal complete with a biscuit and two rich sides—coleslaw made properly (with mayo) and mashed potatoes with gravy. To wash it down? Orange Crush.
Modern fast food originated in 1912, with the opening of the world’s first Automat in where else?—New York.
Forty-five percent of British citizens—the most of any country in the world—agree with the statement “I like the taste of fast food too much to give it up.” Forty-four percent of Americans agreed.
Every month, more than 90 percent of children in the United States eat at McDonald’s.Soda has by far the highest profit margin at fast-food restaurants. A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 only contains about 9 cents’ worth of Coke syrup.
The fast-food restaurants with the greatest increase in the number of stores in 2007 were Quiznos and Panera Bread Company.McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef in the country. KFC buys the most chicken.
Rations
4. BEEF STEW Meal Ready To Eat
U.S Military
This single-portion military ration includes beef stew, mini chocolate-chip cookies, and powdered milk, as well as Tabasco sauce and apple jelly. Also included: the smallest packet of Taster’s Choice we’ve ever seen.
All MREs (meals ready to eat) must contain at least 1,200 calories, and can last up to three years.
MREs have been nicknamed “meals rejected by everyone” by soldiers.
Soldiers should not eat MREs more than 21 days in a row.
Menu options include: spicy penne pasta, beef enchilada, chicken fajita, and sloppy joe filling. All MREs come with Tabasco sauce.
In 1941, ready-to-eat Army meals came in three options: meat and beans, meat and vegetable hash, and meat and vegetable stew.All military MREs come packaged with a flameless heater, which uses a simple chemical reaction to provide sufficient heat to warm the food.
Raw
5. MOCK TUNA SALAD
Leaf Cuisine
Mock tuna sits over cabbage, mung bean sprouts, sunflower sprouts, and carrots in this all-raw salad. To drink? A shot of wheatgrass and algae, and a serving of coconut juice—from the husk, naturally.
Adherents to the raw-food doctrine won’t eat anything that’s been cooked above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hardcore raw foodists won’t drink tea or, more obviously, coffee. Instead they’ll stew sun-dried herbs in warm, not boiling, water.
The eating of live insects—a source of Vitamin B12 for some primates—is a point of contention between vegan and nonvegan raw foodists.Some foods can be poisonous when eaten raw, including buckwheat, kidney beans, and potatoes.
A 1999 study of German raw foodists found that 25 percent of women and nearly 15 percent of men were underweight.
The body more easily absorbs iron from most vegetables when those vegetables have been boiled, stir-fried, steamed, or grilled.
School Lunch
1. CHICKEN and BROCCOLI
Pasadena High School
The healthiest school lunch we could find: chicken with broccoli, carrots, and white rice, with three pieces of fruit for dessert and a carton of 2-percent milk to wash it all down.
The Department of Agriculture has not changed rules about the nutritional content of federally subsidized school lunches in 30 years.
The National School Lunch Program served more than 5 billion lunches in 2007.
Fewer than one-third of public school lunches meet the USDA standards for total fat or saturated fat.
The average cost of a lunch for the last school year was $1.80.
Federal law prohibits the sale of soda in school cafeterias during the lunch period.
More than half the states have adopted new rules limiting what food and drinks kids have access to at schools.
The percentage of high schools with vending machines has doubled since the early 1990s.
Twenty states received failing grades for their school food policies.
Super-Gourmet
2. OSETRA PIZZA
Hidden
This pizza costs $250 at Hidden, in Santa Monica, California. Justifying the hefty price tag are the crème fraîche, marinated lobster carpaccio, and Beluga caviar that adorn the wafer-thin crust. Glass of Nero d’Avola not included.
Full-service restaurants are a $558-billion industry in the United States.
The restaurant business employs 13.1 million Americans—more people than any other industry in the country, except the government.
Eighty percent of Americans think going out to a restaurant is a better use of their leisure time than cooking and cleaning.
In 2005, the average American spent $1,054 on restaurant meals.The highest grossing independent restaurant in the country is Tao Las Vegas—which raked in $55.2 million during 2006, its first full year open.
Fast Food
3. CLASSIC CHICKEN DINNER
Popeyes
Behold a classic: a three-piece Popeyes meal complete with a biscuit and two rich sides—coleslaw made properly (with mayo) and mashed potatoes with gravy. To wash it down? Orange Crush.
Modern fast food originated in 1912, with the opening of the world’s first Automat in where else?—New York.
Forty-five percent of British citizens—the most of any country in the world—agree with the statement “I like the taste of fast food too much to give it up.” Forty-four percent of Americans agreed.
Every month, more than 90 percent of children in the United States eat at McDonald’s.Soda has by far the highest profit margin at fast-food restaurants. A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 only contains about 9 cents’ worth of Coke syrup.
The fast-food restaurants with the greatest increase in the number of stores in 2007 were Quiznos and Panera Bread Company.McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef in the country. KFC buys the most chicken.
Rations
4. BEEF STEW Meal Ready To Eat
U.S Military
This single-portion military ration includes beef stew, mini chocolate-chip cookies, and powdered milk, as well as Tabasco sauce and apple jelly. Also included: the smallest packet of Taster’s Choice we’ve ever seen.
All MREs (meals ready to eat) must contain at least 1,200 calories, and can last up to three years.
MREs have been nicknamed “meals rejected by everyone” by soldiers.
Soldiers should not eat MREs more than 21 days in a row.
Menu options include: spicy penne pasta, beef enchilada, chicken fajita, and sloppy joe filling. All MREs come with Tabasco sauce.
In 1941, ready-to-eat Army meals came in three options: meat and beans, meat and vegetable hash, and meat and vegetable stew.All military MREs come packaged with a flameless heater, which uses a simple chemical reaction to provide sufficient heat to warm the food.
Raw
5. MOCK TUNA SALAD
Leaf Cuisine
Mock tuna sits over cabbage, mung bean sprouts, sunflower sprouts, and carrots in this all-raw salad. To drink? A shot of wheatgrass and algae, and a serving of coconut juice—from the husk, naturally.
Adherents to the raw-food doctrine won’t eat anything that’s been cooked above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hardcore raw foodists won’t drink tea or, more obviously, coffee. Instead they’ll stew sun-dried herbs in warm, not boiling, water.
The eating of live insects—a source of Vitamin B12 for some primates—is a point of contention between vegan and nonvegan raw foodists.Some foods can be poisonous when eaten raw, including buckwheat, kidney beans, and potatoes.
A 1999 study of German raw foodists found that 25 percent of women and nearly 15 percent of men were underweight.
The body more easily absorbs iron from most vegetables when those vegetables have been boiled, stir-fried, steamed, or grilled.
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