Students served six year-old pork at schools in East Tennessee are fortunate not to have fallen ill. According to The New York Times , the pork had been frozen, but the dates on the packages ranged from 2009-2011. Hawkins County Commissioner Michael Herrell learned about the old meat when a “concerned” cafeteria worker noticed the dates, and made a phone call to him.
Tennessee school serves pork roast that had been frozen since 2009 to students: http://t.co/9f3Zd10MEH pic.twitter.com/QvIoGAJvdq
— KLTV 7 (@KLTV7) April 30, 2015
The school system has decided to implement a new food-handling procedure to ensure that this type of thing doesn’t happen again.
“Director of Schools Steve Starnes says a new inventory system went into effect last Friday. All current frozen items were inventoried, and outdated items were discarded.”
The students served six year-old pork consumed this particular lunch on April 22, and no sicknesses have been reported. Most people know that putting something in the freezer basically stops time. While the flavors and quality of frozen foods can diminish significantly over time, many people will eat frozen meats well after their expiration dates. Some say that there is no guarantee that frozen meats would “go bad” after a certain amount of time, but the USDA recommends that frozen meats be thrown out after “four to 12 months,” according to the Huffington Post.
“These high-schoolers — they understand if they see something they are not going to like, they don’t eat it, but when you get to these kindergartners, first- and second-graders, do they really know if the meat is bad or not? They go to school, and that might be the only meal they get all day long, and it just very upsets me that these kids are going to school to get that meal. It just didn’t go over well with me when I heard we were feeding these kids meat that’s dated 2009,” Mr. Herrell said.
The students served six year-old pork have taught schools a valuable lesson. As previously reported by the Inquisitr , random checks are going to occur to ensure that lunchroom workers are staying on top of the frozen food situation. Any old meat (over 12 months) will be discarded.
Would you be upset if your child or children were served 6 year-old meat? Do you think that this is a problem in many schools across the U.S.? What do you think should be done?
[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]
