What's in your kid's lunch?
"USDA Misinforms Parents About Chinese-Processed Chicken in School Meals"
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/09/usda-misinforms-parents-about-chinese-processed-chicken-in-school-meals/#.U-yvmGOK2_I"So the pertinent question is: Can private vendors sell Chinese-processed chicken to schools?
I emailed the FSIS and a USDA spokesperson agreed that “schools also make their own purchases†of school food, but she went on to note that such purchases are governed by a “Buy American†regulation which requires participating schools to purchase domestically grown and processed foods, to the maximum extent practicable. A domestic . . . product is defined to be “. . . a food product that is processed in the United States substantially using agricultural commodities that are produced in the United States.â€
This regulation sounds like a de facto ban on Chinese-processed chicken. But at the end of her email, the spokesperson also disclosed that under the “Buy American†rule:
[p]roducts that are processed in the United States and comprised of at least 51 percent domestic ingredients
I have since expressly confirmed with the USDA that this definition of “domestic†would indeed allow Chinese-processed chicken into the school lunch program. Here’s how: if, for example, a manufacturer of frozen chicken egg rolls fully assembles the egg rolls in this country, but sources the cooked chicken in the egg rolls from a Chinese processor, the egg rolls are considered “domestic†so long as the Chinese-processed chicken doesn’t comprise more than 49% of the total product. School districts could buy these egg rolls without violating the “Buy American†rule and the egg rolls would not have to bear any country-of-origin labeling to disclose the location of the poultry processing. And this scenario could easily apply to any chicken-based entree supplied to schools, such as chicken soup, frozen chicken burritos, chicken chili, chicken-stuffed ravioli, and more.
I also learned that there’s a second exception to the “Buy American†rule. In the unlikely event that the economics of chicken processing shift, such that it becomes reliably cheaper for schools to source items like patties and nuggets using Chinese-processed chicken over domestically processed chicken, then schools can freely buy such products, regardless of ingredient percentages.
So the bottom line is this: despite the blanket reassurance to the contrary on FSIS’s website, it is entirely possible that Chinese-processed chicken will be used in school meals."
