Several S.D. County Schools Pull Apples From Student Menus

Several San Diego County elementary-school districts and one unified school district have stopped serving apples to their students after a recent report that a chemical sometimes applied to the fruit to delay ripening can cause cancer, authorities said Tuesday.

South Bay Union Elementary, Bonsall Union Elementary, Cajon Valley Union Elementary, Dehesa Elementary and Encinitas Union Elementary school districts all said they would take apples, apple sauce and apple juice off their school lunch menus until they receive assurances from suppliers or government agencies that the apples are safe to eat.

“We are maintaining (apple juice) in storage. We are not serving it and we’re not buying any more,” said David H. West, superintendent of the Borrego Springs Unified School District, which has also put a hold on the fruit. “There seems to be some question about it, and we’ll let somebody who knows more about it than we do give us some advice first.”

Fruit Pulled Elsewhere

Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, and the San Francisco Unified School District stopped selling and serving apples last week.

In San Diego, school officials stressed they were not banning the fruit, but were taking precautions until further information is available. Others said they had not been told by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, which runs a commodity program providing many schools with fruit, to take the fruit off the menus.

Some officials said the public overreacted to last month’s report by the nonprofit, Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

“We have secured documentation from our produce company . . . that all their apples come from orchards that do not use Alar,” a brand name for the chemical daminozide used to control ripening, said Jane Boehrer, food services director for the San Diego Unified School District.

A spokeswoman for the Farm Bureau of San Diego County said Alar is used on 5% of the apple crop in the country, and that those apples are designated for export.

Fear About Public Alarm

“I understand the concern for food safety, and that the schools have a responsibility to get all the information they need for an educated decision . . . but we hope that this kind of action doesn’t alarm the public into thinking fresh fruits and vegetables are not safe for consumption,” said Farm Bureau spokeswoman Wendy Benz.

Mary Beth Lang, a spokeswoman for the Washington state Department of Food and Agriculture, said that, “of 100 fresh apple samples that our department pulled from different Washington state growers, only seven showed any traces of Alar. The highest level we found was 1.4 parts per million, and the (Environmental Protection Agency) allows 20 parts per million.”

Washington state produces 40% of the nation’s apples, Lang said.

At Cajon Valley Union Elementary school district, Linda Patzold, director of child nutrition, said the commercial distributor who sells apples to the district had assured her that the growers they buy the fruit from do not use Alar. Nevertheless, she said she will await further testing results from the EPA, the state Department of Health Services and other government agencies.