Apples Will Reappear in School Cafeterias; State Calls Fruit Safe

School districts began taking steps Friday to restore apples and related products to cafeteria menus, as the state’s top health and education officials added their voices to the chorus of government agencies declaring the fruit safe to eat.

Scores of districts in California and throughout the nation hastily banned the fruit this week, following the lead of the nation’s two largest school systems, Los Angeles Unified and New York City schools, which had stopped serving apples in any form because of fears about Alar, a growth-regulating chemical used on some apple crops.

Most districts contacted Friday said they expect to begin offering the fruit again after students return from next week’s spring break.

“It’s a relief it’s over,” said Joyce Pinto, supervisor of food services for the ABC Unified School District, which includes Cerritos, Artesia and Lakewood. “I think (the danger) was a bit exaggerated.”

In San Diego County, some school districts were still refusing to serve apples to students Friday until they received written assurances from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the fruit was not tainted with a chemical called daminozide, authorities said.

Although federal and state agencies officially discounted Thursday a report that apples treated with the chemical pose a health risk, most local school district officials said they were still playing it safe and waiting for letters from Department of Agriculture officials following further testing of apple products.

A spokeswoman for the South Bay Union Elementary school district, with 8,700 students, said that, although the district had heard that the apples are safe, a decision had not been made about whether to serve apples to the students.

In Alpine, apples are not considered “on hold’ because they were never scheduled to be on this week’s menu anyway. Next week is Spring Break, and the district expects to hear from USDA officials before classes begin again.

Bonsall Union Elementary, Borrego Springs Unified, Encinitas Union Elementary, Fallbrook Union Elementary, Lemon Grove Elementary, Oceanside Unified, South Bay Union Elementary, Sweetwater Union High and Valley Center Union Elementary were not serving apples.

San Diego Unified school district, the state’s second-largest, Cajon Valley Union Elementary school district and several other districts are serving the fruit after being informed by suppliers that their apples are not sprayed with the chemical.

After a weeklong ban, Los Angeles school district Supt. Leonard Britton said Thursday that apples and some related products could again be served in school cafeterias, basing his decision on results of laboratory tests showing the items to be safe. The federal government also formally declared Thursday that it is safe to eat apples.

By Friday morning some Los Angeles district schools began placing apple orders with the district’s central food warehouse, where about 450,000 apples are in storage, a district official said.

State Food and Agriculture Director Jack Parnell, Health Services Director Kenneth W. Kizer and Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig also announced Friday that Alar levels of only 1/400th to 1/1,000th the federal safety standard of 20 parts per million were found in samples of apples and apple products taken from Department of Education storehouses in Pomona and Sacramento.

None of the tested apples or apple products had levels of daminozide, the chemical from which Alar is made, of more than .055 parts per million. Daminozide has been linked to cancer in laboratory studies.

Charges of Alar’s dangers, particularly among young children, were made last month by a New York-based group called the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“We have a lot more significant health problems” than apples with trace amounts of Alar, said Honig, who joined the other officials at a news conference in San Francisco.

Policy to Continue

He said the state Department of Education, which supplies schools with apple products from U.S. Department of Agriculture surpluses, will continue to accept apples from crops treated with Alar. He added, however, that if the federal government bans the chemical, “it’s not going to break our heart.”

Neither Kizer nor Honig said he is prepared to take the extreme step--advocated by some environmentalists--of requiring schools to serve only chemical-free fruits and vegetables to pupils. According to Kizer, there is insufficient scientific data to support such action.

The New York City school system, which serves one million students, was the first district in the country to drop apples from the menu until federal authorities could verify the fruit’s safety. An official there said Friday that administrators will meet Monday to decide when to resume serving apples and products made from them.

Woo reported from Los Angeles and Morain from San Francisco. Staff writer Maureen Fan in San Diego contributed to this story.