Posted by Isabelle, a member of the Valley View Elementary School community, on Feb 24, 2008 at 9:47 am

The meat used too be sooooooo digusting.

Posted by PToWN94566, a member of the Walnut Grove Elementary School community, on Feb 25, 2008 at 8:02 pm

I agree. I remember the hamburgers looking like nasty little organisms that were still alive. Ick!!! In high school all I ate where those sandwiches from the place around the corner (Amador).

Posted by Jon, a resident of the Kottinger Ranch neighborhood, on Feb 29, 2008 at 8:06 am

I hope the school district can be convinced to not only change meat vendors, but switch to a higher quality of meat in the long run. The "feed" recipe used in the modern meat industry is carefully designed to produce high volume meat with marbled fat, period. The marbled fat does make the meat more tender and some argue that the tastes better (I disagree), but you would probably not find anyone outside the beef industry (and otherwise credible) who would promote the nutritional value, working conditions, animal wellfare practices, land use practices, and air quality effects of these factory farms.

There are similar problems with poultry and "the other white meat" (by the way, there is something very wrong with white pork - flavor and nutrician).

Fortunately, grass fed beef is returning as are other high quality small farm foods. High quality chicken is still pretty difficult to find, but that would improve as well if the USDA would stop imposing safety rules designed for factory farms on the little guys that don't have the same issues.

Jon