A post from a concerned parent on Facebook has drawn a lot of interest, especially from her co-parents at the Rowland Academy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Ashely Adams shared a photo of the kind of burger served at her kid’s school, which suggested its poor quality.
Adams shared the photo on the group page called Concerned Citizens of Harrisburg Community.
The meat had signs of pink color, which meant that the burger was not cooked right.
A burger that’s still quite pink the middle may cause food poisoning.
Minced meat that hasn’t been properly seared may contain bacteria, such as salmonella or E. coli, and this could be fatal to one’s health.
The standard recommendation is that ground beef must be cooked at 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sometimes, however, it could be okay to eat a rare burger, which still has the pink meat in the middle, if you’re sure of the quality of the meat and its preparation.
Fine dining restaurants usually ascribe to strict guidelines when handling burger meat.
But places like fast food joints and school canteens are at greater risks for food contamination.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA), therefore, recommends cooking burgers well so that any bacteria could be killed in the process.
Following the photo post and the strong reactions from the parents, the school district’s food service contractor, Southwest Foodservice Excellence (SFE), issued a statement to appease the concerns.
SFE said that it has investigated the matter and contacted the meat supplier.
SFE has also reviewed its kitchen procedures and stated the burgers served at the Rowland Academy were properly cooked in a flame-broiled grill with the meat coming from just one supplier.
Tyson Foods, the parent company of the meat supplier Advance-Pierre Foods, also issued a statement to affirm its commitment to provide students with healthy and safe foods.
It also informed the public that meat may turn back to pink, even after fully cooking, if it’s been in a holding oven for a long time.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the taste nor the quality of the product.
But the statements still did not appease the parents.
Adams, in particular, finally understood the complaints her daughter often had about the kind of lunch served in school.
Initially, the mom said that she thought her daughter was just exaggerating about the food quality.
Adams now sees why her daughter usually goes home hungry because she usually skips lunch.
Other parents have also chimed in to confirm that their children have had complaints about the kind of food given to kids at Rowland Academy.
Last June, the school district decided to change food vendors and hired SFE after another incident caused an uproar.
Boxes of frozen food were apparently left outside an elementary school grounds because there wasn’t enough storage.
The school was slapped with a health code violation.
Meanwhile, the Harrisburg School District also responded to the controversy in a post on its social media page.
It pointed to the “factual product information” from Tyson Foods and SFE, and stood by their statements.
