Rufus Leakin

Guru of Folklore

Unionized cafeteria workers in one western Pennsylvania school district have won the right to eat expired food for free — at their own risk. 

The Herald of Sharon, PA, reports that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a grievance against the Sharpsville Area School District last year after school officials “violated established past practice” by no longer allowing workers to eat the expired food for free.

The newspaper got a copy of a settlement approved by the school board last month.

Under the agreement, food items that are past their expiration date or reheated in a way that they can no longer be served to students, may still be eaten for free by the cafeteria workers.

Workers must pay for any unexpired food they eat.

Source: The Herald, www.sharon-herald.com

When I was in school, I remember the cafeteria workers being some of the sweetest old ladies I knew. They were always very kind to me and seemed to have the students’ welfare as a high priority.

So, it’s really not all that surprising that they would also not want to let good food go to waste.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection service, “product dates don’t always refer to home storage and use after purchase.

‘Use-by’ dates usually refer to best quality and are not safety dates. But even if the date expires during home storage, a product should be safe, wholesome and of good quality if handled properly and kept at 40°F or below.”

In fact, I have kept milk at the back of my refrigerator (to the point where there are little specks of ice in it) that was still fresh beyond the EXP date stamped on it.

However, I have had bouts of food poisoning when say, there was some leftover pepper steak that I probably had in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but microwaved and had for lunch anyway (hey- it didn’t smell that bad). While in the doctor’s office a day later, I was told that spoiled food takes about 24 hours to take effect on your system, and that any food leftover for more than a week should probably be thrown out.

SO, let’s be clear, here. I’m talking about food that has just recently been served and then properly stored at a reasonable temperature, for the express purposes of providing another meal selection. If the food won’t actually be served again to students but is still edible, it really is wasting our tax-dollars if it’s thrown away, when others can still benefit from it (Second Harvest, maybe?).

Did you ever stop to think about how much food is wasted that could probably be used to feed the needy? I typed in “wasted food in the US” on the web, and found out that Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, spent 10 years measuring food loss at all levels of food production and consumption.  He discovered not only that about half of the food produced in America is discarded, but also that much of it could feed people who need it. On top of that, the rate of food loss, even partially corrected, could save US consumers and manufacturers tens of billions of dollars each year. 

I recall a news story about restaurants donating their unused food to shelters that provide meals for homeless families. If it’s a tax write-off for the restaurants, the shelters don’t need to divert scarce funds to simply buy food, and families down on their luck can get a decent meal… everybody wins.