Responding to the recent news that chicken nuggets fed to school children contain wounded skin, sores, bruises, and pus, several school districts in Oregon have declared a moratorium on serving chicken nuggets as part of their school lunch program. The serving of nuggets was temporarily suspended when federal food-safety inspectors announced, earlier this month, that one of the country's largest chicken slaughtering companies, Gold Kist, has been marketing nuggets made out of birds slaughtered with sores, scabs, and infections mixed into the nuggets. Beverly Hassell is the commodities specialist at the Child Nutrition Program, Oregon Department of Education, and she is responsible for distributing the diseased nuggets to the schools.

• Please Urge Beverly Hassell to Use this Wake Up Call to Stop Serving Chicken Nuggets (and Other Chicken Products) to Students Permanently. She can NIX NUGGETS FOREVER! She should use whatever authority she has to stop the distribution of diseased nuggets to unsuspecting Oregon school children. Claiming that the schools should determine the food choices of their students is irresponsible when the horrors of these nuggets are hidden from them.
  Snail-mail: Attn: Beverly Hassell, Commodities Specialist
  c/o Child Nutrition Program
  Oregon Department of Education
  255 Capital Street, NE
  Salem, OR 97310
  

  Phone: 503-378-3579, ext 471
  Fax: 503-373-7968
  E-mail: beverly.hassell@state.or.us

• The diseased nuggets by Gold Kist are distributed to the school lunch program in the following states: Alabama - Arizona - California - Colorado - Delaware - Florida - Indiana - Iowa - Kentucky - Maryland - Michigan - Minnesota - Missouri - Nebraska - Nevada - New Jersey - New Mexico - New York - North Dakota - Ohio - Oregon - Pennsylvania - Rhode Island - North Carolina - South Carolina - Tennessee - Texas Utah - Virginia - Wisconsin

  This is not an isolated problem but a chronic problem with chicken nuggets everywhere. All chicken nuggets are produced in a similar manner. Regardless if your state is listed above, please contact your local school district and your state board of education and ask them to NIX NUGGETS FOREVER!

Talking Points:

• Chicken nuggets contribute to the increasing health problems, including high cholesterol, that are being documented in American school children.

• A chicken nugget is made of reconstituted chicken parts, grease, polyphosphates, and other chemical agents needed to hold the product together. A chicken nugget has very low nutritional value while being high in saturated fat and cholesterol.

• The recent incident with the Gold Kist poultry company is not isolated, rare, or remediable. As US Department of Agriculture overseer of food-safety inspection, John McCutchen, told the press regarding the Gold Kist episode: Even with 100 percent inspection, infected, bruised, injured birds would go into the food chain. Infected and injured body parts regularly go into products in which they are disguised--chicken patties, sausages, nuggets, and "buffalo" wings.

• Ten years ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that every week "chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors or skin conditions are shipped to consumers." USDA Inspector Ronnie Sarratt told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that wings, legs, and other parts of birds leaking pus regularly go into chicken breast fillets, buffalo wings, and chicken products fried in grease and coated with barbecue sauce. School lunch programs, like all other institutional food service programs, are dumping ground for such products.

• A wholesome and nutritious lunch program should be based on whole grains, nuts, leafy greens, fresh fruits, fruit juices, and soy products. The US government's own studies have confirmed that these are the kinds of foods children and adults should be eating to stay healthy and to reduce the risk of clogged arteries, diabetes, obesity, and foodborne illness (which can lead to arthritis).

United Poultry Concerns. February 15, 2000

(Action Alert - Urge School Lunch to Nix Nuggets Forever!)