Newswise — Irradiated meat products remain slow to appear in the marketplace, and that includes the nation's school lunchrooms. A national survey by Iowa State University found that more than 95 percent of the responding school food service managers indicated that irradiated foods are not available from their distributors.
While the managers also noted that they would be likely to serve irradiated food in their schools if available, they also reported that students and parents would probably be concerned if irradiated food was offered. The managers also believed that students should be informed if their schools are serving irradiated food.
"There is not a lot of interest across the country in irradiated food products in school lunch programs," said Dan Henroid, a former ISU Extension specialist in hotel, restaurant and institution management and current faculty member at the University of Houston, who supervised the survey for the Food Safety Consortium. He explained how the system works and why irradiated products do not figure in prominently.
The 2002 Farm Bill authorized irradiated food to be served in the federal school lunch program and permits " but does not require " USDA to include irradiated food in its commodity distribution. The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 reiterated that irradiated foods may be served in schools but only at the request of states and school food authorities.
Schools that receive federal assistance for their lunch programs can get free commodity food products from the U.S. Department of Agriculture via the state agency supervising child nutrition programs. Ground beef is the main irradiated food product that is currently available through the USDA. The supervising state agency must request that irradiated ground beef be added to their distribution list. Once it is added, schools can then request it like any other commodity food product.
The demand for irradiated ground beef in schools is not very high and several states including Iowa have opted not to make it available to schools in their state. However, if a school district wants to use irradiated ground beef, it can purchase it from a local food service distribution company.
Although state agencies and school food service managers might be expected to be attracted to the extra margin of safety that irradiation would provide for its food, they also have costs to consider. "When you're talking about 16 cents a pound more for irradiated ground beef compared to non-irradiated, they can stretch their food dollars further," Henroid said.
With costs as a factor and the reluctance of much of the public to embrace irradiation if they are not well informed about it, food service managers would face the prospect of educating their patrons.
"School food service managers generally did not feel like that they were knowledgeable enough to educate the general public," said Jason Ellis, an extension specialist in the hotel, restaurant, and institution management program at Iowa State and the study's co-author. Schools usually have some controversial issues to face at any given time.
"Why would school districts take on another controversial issue to add to their already overburdened plate?" Henroid said. "That's the attitude I sense from some people. I think it may take a major outbreak in the schools, God forbid, for that to happen."
Though the survey was conducted before the fall of 2004 when irradiated ground beef was available to school districts, Henroid believes that several main issues still must be addressed before irradiated foods are commonly found in schools.
"The demand for irradiated food must be greater," Henroid said. "The costs for irradiated food must be comparable to non-irradiated food. And interested people in the community outside of the school systems need to be more informed before we see more schools using irradiated foods."
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