Story Published:
Feb 18, 2008 at 5:32 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Feb 18, 2008 at 5:39 PM CDT
REPUBLIC, Mo. -- Beef may be what's for dinner, as the promotion line goes, but, right now, it's what's not on the lunch menu for thousands of kids across the Ozarks. A company, at the urging of the federal government, voluntarily recalled 143 million pounds of beef after undercover video inside a slaughterhouse in southern California showed cows too sick to stand.
The company and the federal inspectors believe some of the beef from those sick cows ended up at schools. There’s no evidence that any of the recalled beef wound up at schools in the Ozarks but many schools, including the Republic School District, weren't taking chances on Monday.
The lunch choices at Republic High School on Monday included chicken but not beef. Cheeseburgers were off the menu.
“Temporarily, we have taken all beef off our menu until we can have time to make 100-percent sure we don't,” said food services director Ruth Melvin.
Melvin says she hasn't found any of the recalled beef in her cafeterias. But, after hearing about the alarming undercover video, which showed cows too sick to stand being pushed by a forklift, she is being cautious.
The video was taken at the Westland- Hallmark slaughterhouse. It shows sick and injured cattle moved past USDA inspectors and into the food chain.
"It's hard to believe that this kind of handling of animals happens anywhere in the United States, much less at a federal slaughter establishment,” said Dr. Kenneth Petersen, assistant administrator for Office of Field Operations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The recall this weekend prompted schools like Republic and Springfield to take beef off the menu until they can find out more about the situation.
“Obviously, there are a lot of packing companies besides the one in California and that's a long way from us but we're going to be absolutely sure before we put it back on the menu,” said Melvin.
Meanwhile, one local food service company, Opaa! Foods, which provides food to Nixa, Marshfield and Aurora school districts, said it did pull recalled boxes of meat on the order of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The company does not believe any of it was distributed to schools, and administrators at all of the schools said they do not have any of the recalled meat in their cafeterias.
It's also important to note no one has reported getting sick from the recalled meat.
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