Mystery meat: school lunch safety.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Citings - Brief article

FAST FOOD restaurants are reputed to be cut-rate, unhealthy outfits, while government-run schools are supposed to be public-spirited and socially responsible. But according to a USA Today investigation published in December, meat that would be rejected by McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box is being served to American schoolchildren.

School meat is tested less often than restaurant meat and for fewer contaminants. With ground beef, for example, fast food joints typically pull samples for testing from the line every 15 minutes and test composite samples every hour or two. The Agricultural Marketing Service, the wing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that buys meat for schools, pulls samples just eight times a day, and it combines them into...