Foodborne illness is a major public health concern in the U.S. The CDC [Centers for Disease Control] estimates that approximately 48 million Americans become ill, 128,000 hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne illnesses annually. Most of these illnesses are attributed to improper food handling. To meet the growing demand for food safety…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to provide baseline data and characteristics of food served and consumed prior to the recently mandated nutrition standards as authorized by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA). Methods: Over 600,000 school lunch menus with associated food production records from 61 elementary schools…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that there are 76 million cases of foodborne disease annually. Foodborne disease is usually associated with beef, poultry, and seafood. However, there is an increasing number of foodborne disease cases related to fresh produce. Consumers may not associate fresh produce with foodborne disease…