Health standards for school lunch meat far lower than for fast food joints

As a Dad with a daughter in public school, I was more than a little alarmed to read that the meat/bacteria regulations for fast food restaurants are 10 times more strict than the standards set by the USDA for school lunches, according to a report by USA Today.

Underscoring how truly alarming this is requires some history. Back in 1993, Jack in the Box fast food restaurants were responsible for the deaths of several children due to E. coli O157:H7 food poisoning. Four kids died of hemolytic uremic syndrome and 600 residents of Washington state were sickened or hospitalized with bloody diarrhea stemming from bacteria-tainted hamburgers, derived from meat produced by Von Companies of California.