Good for the South Florida's school boards for taking quick action to pull the beef from school lunch menus in the wake of a USDA shut down of one of the meat suppliers to the National School Lunch Program.

I never thought school food looked edible, appetizing or, in fact, very nutritious even before I read this appalling report. (In defense of school lunch, I will say that South Florida Parenting's longtime nutrition columnist, in whom I have utmost respect, tells me the nutrition quality of school lunch is actually pretty good.)

Still, I would never eat that stuff and could never force my kids to eat it either, even on those days when it would be so much easier to hand them money than to scrounge for something to put in the lunch box.

Now I'm really glad my kid packs her lunch every day. She may not eat everything in her lunchbox. No doubt there's a fair amount of food-trading going on at her lunch table, just as at any other. But I'm pretty sure she'd trade carrots for cookie, not meatballs or beef patty.

I don't know why school food is so awful. I know they have to feed a lot of people in a short time on a limited budget, but is that any excuse for serving meat from abused cows to children? And why do they bother, honestly, with slopping a pile of slimy, smelly spinach on any kid's plate? Can't there be some way to serve fresh, healthy, antibiotic-free, disease-free food to children at school?

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