Despite new, stricter federal standards for food served for school lunches, some Southern New Hampshire residents are launching a campaign to make sure the health of schoolchildren isn't being taken for granted.
Derry native Benjamin Thompson of the New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group is spearheading an effort to ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to tighten its standards for food served to the nation's youngsters through the national school lunch program.
On July 1, the USDA improved its standards for beef, but must still increase those for other foods such as fish, Thompson said.
"We need all these standards to be up to par so we can feed them to our kids," he said.
Thompson teamed up with another Derry resident, state Rep. Gina Hutchinson, to launch his organization's Safe Food, Healthy Kids campaign Thursday in front of the Statehouse in Concord.
Hutchinson, a teacher in the Derry and Timberlane Regional school districts for 35 years, said federal standards for school lunches need to be beefed up to make sure children are receiving the safe, nutritious food they need.
"The whole idea is looking for better inspections, especially the ground beef and chicken," she said in an interview Wednesday.
The retired educator said although the general quality of meals served at New Hampshire's schools is perhaps better than in many other states, tougher federal standards means children will be less likely to suffer from food-borne illnesses such as salmonella.
Thompson said one particular concern is chicken, noting that the poultry sold to school lunch programs are "spent hens" too old to lay eggs. Their meat is tough and stringy, and four times more prone to salmonella than chicken sold at supermarkets, he said.
As part of his organization's campaign, Thompson said they plan to survey more than 1,000 New Hampshire parents over the next five weeks on the quality of lunches served in schools. The consumer advocacy group also intends to lobby Congress to pass the proposed Child Nutrition Act and to pressure the federal government to improve its tracking system for recalled foods.
But of course, adopting stricter standards means spending additional money to make sure improvements are made and that the more stringent regulations are enforced, Hutchinson said.
"We want them to have more nutritious foods, but are we willing to put more money behind it?" she asked.
One local school food service director interviewed, Barbara Schultz of Salem High School, said while the USDA tries to enact tougher standards and schools do the best they can to provide nutritious meals, budget constraints can be a problem.
"I feel that they are always trying to improve the standards and the schools are always trying to improve their standards for the meal," she said.
When asked to respond to the group's allegations, the USDA released a statement refuting many of the claims. The federal agency said the recall of school lunch program products is rare and there have been no food-borne outbreaks in schools for more than a decade.
In addition, stricter poultry standards were announced two months ago, the USDA said.
"From USDA's perspective, there is no more fundamental function of government than protecting consumers from harm, in this case from food-borne illness."
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