EAG:
MONROEVILLE, Pa. – Parents and members of Gateway School District’s board of education were shocked to learn three-year-old ham purchased from the federal government was served to students in seven schools.
“Unacceptable!” parent Stephanie Daniels told WPXI. “Regardless if it’s frozen or not, these are our kids. This is our future.”
Gateway school board vice president Valerie Warning revealed at a recent board meeting that she discovered six cases of sliced ham dating to April 2014 at the local high school food storage facility last week, and later learned the expired meat was being served to students.
Warning said Food Service Director Martin Lorenzo described the problem as “an oversight.”
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:
He said the sliced ham had been served to students. In fact, it was almost all used up – although he does not remember how much the district originally received, he said.
The sliced ham cases were part of a USDA surplus commodity foods order, Lorenzo said. The food, valued at about $20,000, was free, except the district paid for shipping, which amounted to about $1,500.
Lorenzo explained that the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not recognize expiration dates for foods that remain frozen, so technically the ham is still considered safe.
“The only food that is defined as having an expiration date is baby formula, per USDA language,” Lorenzo said. “Date marking is a big misconception and it leads to $260 billion of food being wasted a year.” more
Hell, I still have frozen bacon from 1987.
It could’ve been worse, it could’ve been 3 year old cheese.
looks good check, smells good check, taste good check, consumed check.
But it’s for the children.(sobbing)
I remember 1967 c-rations in 1983. The hot dog and beans weren’t too bad. Even the green eggs and ham were OK.
In 1988 we fired 8-inch artillery shells with propellant that was dated April 1945. The cloth of the charge bags would tear open just pulling them out of the can. Then you would get a lot that were a few years old.
I liked the 1981 unemployment cheese when they gave it out. It was great with macaroni.
Uncle Sam stores all kinds of stufff. I sometimes think they just forget about it.
2014 was a good year for ham. Didn’t that offend the Muslims?
Homer and expired ham:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17c9v1U9Vig
Ham is smoked and often stored in salt, all to preserve the meat. What’s the problem?
In Spain they hang ham for months to let it cure. The best is 36 months old before it’s served. It’s wonderfully delicious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam%C3%B3n_ib%C3%A9rico
I remember reading about scientists in the arctic unearthing a frozen 10,000 year old wholly mammoth and cooking and eating the meat. So what’s the problem?
May it wuz David Letterman’s “Big Ass Ham”.
Did someone complain about the ham not being hallal?
Geez! talk about picky. Serve those children a vintage 14 Devonshire and it ain’t good enough.
Just a big mistake, they were leaving poison bait to rid the school of the muslem infestation.
Just shows how stupid people are now about expiration dates. Nothing more than a sales tool.
Frozen is forever!
2014. So this was MICHELLE OBAMA school lunch ham.
The Union volunteers of 1861 were initially issued barrels of pickled beef in brine marked 1848 (the Mexican War). Now that’s old.
During an unrep (underway replenishment) on board the USS Kitty Hawk in the Spring of 1974 we found lots of cases of old leftover C-rations from World War 2 in the back of the cooler that must’ve been there just in case they ran out of everything else and needed to be used in an emergency. For all I know they may still be there (or on another ship) even though the Kitty Hawk has been decommissioned.
This reminds me of a reporter friend’s story about covering the “decommissioning” of a Cold War era Civil Defense shelter in Florida in the late 1980s.
Among the supplies were canned foods. Dated from the early 1960s.
They opened up a bunch of cans from curiosity. After 25+ years, he said they looked and smelled just fine.
Government ham … mmmmmmm …. this is why USDA needs over 100,000 employees. Why how could our country possibly function without USDA stealing our tax $$ and giving it to wealthy farmers, ConAgra, ADM, Monsanto, and Cargill? Corporate agribusiness zillionaires need to eat, too. Bet they ain’t eating any USDA ham though.
Military commissaries are the same rule. If it’s frozen, it
lasts forever.
There was a time when cured meats could be stored without refrigeration – but they used serious amounts of salts and nitrates to make them safe without that refrigeration. The activist fight against nitrates and salt from the 1980s onwards meant that much of the preserved hams (and other meats) must now be refrigerated due to low salt levels and have very short usable ‘lives’ even so.