School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

I am sure that you have heard about the recent reports on tainted tomatoes finding their way into our markets, restaurants, and even school cafeterias. How true are these reports? Should we be concerned about the safety of the food in our schools?

If news reports are to be believed, there are indeed tainted food produce going around. Many are laying the blame at the feet of the FDA. This is perhaps natural as this is the entity that is supposed to be in control of what is released in the market. An editorial in the Burlington Free Press notes:

The Vermont Department of Health last week confirmed the first Vermont case of salmonella linked to the tomatoes, bringing the total cases to at least 228 in 23 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Bad food turning up in our restaurant meals, grocery stores and even school lunches have become a disturbingly familiar tale in recent years. Just in the past couple of years, the public has been subjected to tainted spinach, seafood, peanut butter and ground beef.

The damage goes beyond those who get sick or die, and spreads to the food industry that loses the people’s confidence about its ability to provide safe food.

Adding tomatoes to that list only underscores the inadequacies of our nation’s food safety programs. This is a shortcoming that Washington must address quickly and aggressively.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a nationwide warning to avoid eating certain types of raw tomatoes, including red plum, red Roma, round red tomatoes and products containing these tomatoes. The FDA says cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes with the vines attached and home grown tomatoes are unlikely to be the source of the salmonella.

So we indeed have a problem. Yet shall we continue to point fingers at people here? Shouldn’t we do something about it ourselves?

I do not have children going to school anymore but if I did, I know that I would strongly urge them NOT to eat anything from the school cafeteria for now. Although I am sure that school authorities are doing their part to avoid making use of the problematic produce, I would want to be sure that my kids are not going to be ingesting anything questionable. Then again, I would not really have that much control over this would I? Perhaps making them lunch boxes would be one solution. Or at least inform them not to get food that might have raw tomatoes in them.

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