By Carol Chmelynski
6/3/03 -- School districts are now allowed to use irradiated meat in the school lunch program, but the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) has not yet made such products available to schools -- and the concept of irradiated food is slow to gain acceptance among the public.
The farm bill passed by Congress in 2002 says the USDA can no longer reject irradiation as a way to sanitize meat for the national school lunch program. It is up to districts to decide whether to purchase irradiated meat.
Bacteria killed
Irradiation is a process that directs electrons or gamma rays at meat to kill harmful bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli, which cause food poisoning.
Irradiation is "absolutely safe," says USDA spokesperson Julie Quick. The American Medical Association, World Health Organization, U.S. Food Safety Inspection Service, and Food and Drug Administration have all said irradiated meat is safe.
Proponents argue that irradiation would reduce the 76 million incidents of food-borne illnesses that occur in the United States each year.
Opponents argue that irradiation poses unknown risks and that schoolchildren shouldn't be used as guinea pigs.
USDA's Economic Research Service has determined that consumers are slow to accept irradiated meat because they have not been informed of its benefits.
When Minnesota, a long-time supporter of irradiation, approached USDA about sponsoring a food safety and irradiation education program, the department awarded the state a $151,000 grant for a pilot in three school districts.
Minnesota's Department of Children, Families, and Learning (CFL) and the state's Food and Nutrition Service selected the Sauk Rapids-Rice, Spring Lake Park, and Willmar school districts to participate.
In the first phase of the program, parents, educators, and school administrators were surveyed about their knowledge and awareness of food safety in general and irradiation in particular, says Doug Gray of the Food and Nutrition Service.
The second phase involved developing education materials for the three districts. The final phase -- which will be concluded in a few weeks -- will include an analysis to see how these educational activities affected people's knowledge and awareness.
"We're just trying to promote good food safety practices," says Gray in response to concerns about the objectivity of the materials. "If a school decides to use irradiated ground beef, that would be their decision."
The pilot program has hit a few snags, however. The Sauk Rapids-Rice district opted out of the program halfway through the second phase.
Parents upset
"It was our sense that we were moving beyond the point of study and being positioned by all parties as being proponents of a product that we merely agreed to study as opposed to endorse," says Superintendent Greg Vandal.
"Our parents were calling us and asking why we were using a product that they were uncertain about."
Even though the district explained the situation, Vandal says, people didn't understand that the district was simply participating in a study and was not actually using irradiated meat.
At Spring Lake Park, a mother of five children was so upset when she heard irradiated food might be considered in the district's school lunch program, she brought her complaints to the school board and launched a Web site refuting CFL's basic information sheet.
Public Citizen, a group that contends irradiation can cause cancer and genetic damage, has led an active opposition to irradiated food in school lunches.
The group sent school boards information packets opposing the technology and a sample resolution banning irradiation in school meals.
The Point Arena (Calif.) Joint Union High School District, which received one of the packets, had a "vigorous debate on the merits of irradiated food" at a board meeting that attracted "an enormous amount of people," says board President Bill Myers.
Boards take action
"Some people were okay with it, but the vast majority were against it," Myers says. "We even brought in a long-time irradiation proponent -- Christine Bruhn of the University of California at Davis -- to speak to the school board." But even she admitted under questioning that although the technology has been around for 50 years, no long-term studies were done on its effects.
It was a difficult call weighing the benefits of killing e-coli against lack of testing, he says, but in the end, the board voted to reject irradiated food.
No irradiated food will be found in any Berkeley (Calif) Unified School District cafeterias, either.
The Berkeley school board had already adopted a policy in 1999 prohibiting irradiated meat and approved a resolution last November reaffirming that stance. "We have a very health and food-conscious community," says school board Vice President John Selawsky.
Eric Peterson, a spokesperson for the American School Food Service Association, says, "Congress has spoken. This has to be made available, but we think it's important that local school districts have a choice as to whether or not they put it on the menu."
If districts serve irradiated meat, Peterson suggests, they should also offer a non-irradiated entree, such as a pasta salad, as an alternative.