Dade County Public Schools in Florida, the nation's fourth-largest school district, on Wednesday joined a growing list of school systems across the nation that have banished apples and related products from lunch menus because of fear of daminozide, a chemical used to treat some apple crops.
It follows New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and scores of smaller districts that have removed apples, apple juice and apple sauce from school cafeterias and vending machines.
In Los Angeles County, 54 out of 82 districts as of Wednesday had stopped serving fresh apples and products made from them.
However, at least two local districts--San Marino and Antelope Valley Union--said they have decided to return apples to school menus today after consulting outside experts and vendors, who told them that daminozide levels are not harmful or were not found in the products they use.
In other districts, such as Culver City, Newhall Elementary and El Monte Union High School District, officials said they were still serving apple juice, because they were convinced that it did not contain daminozide in dangerous levels.
Most districts said they are refraining from serving fresh apples and apple products until they receive official word from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Education that doing so would not pose a health risk to children. State Health Services Director Kenneth W. Kizer on Tuesday said districts were overreacting by not serving the fruit to students.
Jack Hastings, food and nutrition director for Dade County schools, which provides 163,000 lunches a day, said: "When New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles made the decision (to stop serving apples), we decided maybe we better do the same thing."
He said Dade--which includes Miami's schools--would continue the ban "until we get some answer from a regulatory agency one way or another" about the safety of apples treated with daminozide, which has been linked to cancer in laboratory studies using rats.
Back in Schools
However, officials in the San Marino Unified School District, after receiving verification from suppliers that their products do not contain the chemical, decided Wednesday that it was safe to start serving apples and apple products again, Food Service Director Susan Delgado said.
Likewise, students in the Newhall Elementary School District, who have not been offered any apples since Monday, will also start seeing the fruit again today, according to Food Services Director Terry Custer.
