Portsmouth Schools Deal with 'Pink Slime'

Shortly after Portsmouth School Superintendent Ed McDonough became aware about the concerns surrounding the substance known as "pink slime" contained in some USDA-approved school lunch meat, a decision was made to take hamburgers off all school lunch menus.

McDonough said Monday afternoon that he had fielded some calls from the media about "pink slime," which is a beef by-product known as Lean Finely Textured Beef, which grabbed the attention of consumers around the country nearly a year ago, after an episode of "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution," an ABC program in which Oliver, a chef, demonstrated the industry-wide cleaning process used for beef byproducts.

He said Deborah Riso, the Portsmouth Schools nutrition director, pulled hamburgers off the school lunch menus at the elementary schools and replaced them with turkey burgers. He said the same thing would happen at Portsmouth High School and Portsmouth Middle School. Riso was not available for comment on Monday afternoon.

In the meantime, McDonough said Riso will investigate the matter further to see if any of the school district's food vendors sell red meat products that contain pink slime, a wash made of ammonium hydroxide used to clean beef.

On March 15 the USDA issued an announcement that while it considers the meat it supplies to school programs containing LFTB to be "safe, nutritious and affordable" they would change their policy.

"Due to customer demand, the department will be adjusting procurement specifications for the next school year so schools can have additional options in procuring ground beef products. USDA will provide schools with a choice to order product either with or without Lean Finely Textured Beef," the USDA wrote. (See full USDA statement here).

Before Monday, McDonough said he had heard of pink slime, but whenever any issue comes up involving the food that is served to students, he said the district errs on the side of caution.

"We want our kids to have a safe school lunch menu," McDonough added.