Over the past few years a change has been occurring in New York's public school cafeterias. Gone are the mystery meats and pastas with ketchup, they've been replaced by salad bars and whole-grain pastas—a point hammered home by the Times this weekend. But what exactly is in the food that the Department of Education is serving its young charges? That is none of you business, for now. While the DoE currently offers a PDF of all of the nutritional information in the food it serves, that does not include a list of ingredients (an important oversight in this age of scary food allergies). Last Friday Gotham Schools noticed a loophole in the DoE's website that allowed the curious to access not just the nutritional info but also each item's list of ingredients. Within hours from posting a story about it the site was once again locked away from public viewing.
According to the DoE the directory was an internal link to a website the city is building and wasn't meant for public consumption. Yet. “There is no list and never was,” a spokesperson told Gotham Schools. “We are creating one.” But when it will be available to the public is not clear.
Technically there is no legal requirement that school districts publish lists of the ingredients in their cafeteria food. And a quick look around Google implies that next to no school districts currently do (the Fairfax County School system seems to be the exception).
What school districts are required to do is provide alternative meals for those with life-threatening allergies. And how exactly is a kid (or their parent) supposed to know they can't eat a certain food if they can't find out what exactly is in it?
