Going by the revelations of a recent USA Today report, the meat that the US schoolchildren consume, as a part of the National School Lunch Program, falls short of the safety standards of most fast-food restaurants; though it exceeds minimum standards for meat sold at supermarkets.

Despite the fact that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has asserted that the meat purchased under the National School Lunch Program "meets or exceeds standards in commercial products," the report said that investigations have revealed that the quality requirements that fast food chains - like McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and Jack in the Box - follow are ten times more stringent than those followed by the USDA.

Noting that big retailers' limit for harmful pathogens in their meat are ten-fold more stringent than the limits that the USDA sets for school beef, the report also said that the USDA has supplied schools with tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise have gone either to compost or to pet food.

Commenting on the rather disquieting findings, J. Glenn Morris - director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida - told USA Today: "We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants. We are not using those same standards."