The “pink slime” as it’s being called has caused quite the furor on the internet.

Parents and activists are alarmed to find out that this combination of meat by-products and ammonia hydroxide is being served to children in school lunches because the U.S Department of Agriculture continues to purchase it.

This “high risk product” has not passed food inspection findings, however, the U.S.D.A. commissioned a separate study to assess the safety of BPI’s “Lean Beef Trimmings” to make it appear safe.

Custer said he first encountered the product — which gained fame recently as “pink slime” in part due to the efforts of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver — back in the late 1990s. Despite voicing his concerns to other officials at the food inspection service, however, the USDA ruled that Lean Beef Trimmings were safe. “The word in the office was that undersecretary JoAnn Smith pushed it through, and that was that,” Custer said.

Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, Smith had deep ties with the beef industry, serving as president of both the Florida Cattlemen’s Association and the of the National Cattlemen’s Association.

“Scientists in D.C. were pressured to approve this stuff with minimal safety approval,” Zirnstein said.

Although it is counter-intuitive to everything we think we know, there has been no direct link found between junk food sold in schools and obesity.

The researchers compared children’s weight in schools where junk food was sold and in schools where it was banned. The scientists also evaluated eighth graders who moved into schools that sold junk food with those who did not, and children who never attended a school that sold snacks with those who did. And they compared children who always attended schools with snacks with those who moved out of such schools.

This being said, there must be some logic to the connection of a poor diet and ill health.

Kids who drink flavored milk will be ingesting fewer calories and less sugar this year.

As the school is about to start moms can rest a little easier knowing that their children wont be subject to mind bending amounts of sugar.

Excess sugar has been linked to childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes and a host behavioral problems in kids.

This is a small step in the right direction especially for kids who rely on school lunches as their primary source of nutrition.

Cartons of flavored milk will carry just 31 more calories than white milk as the result of a five-year process of industry reformulations aiming to “provide nutritious new products with the same great taste kids love,” said MilkPEP.

The healthy trend among milk processors will reduce added sugar in fat-free and low-fat chocolate milk by 38 percent.

“There are a lot of kids that don’t want to drink plain white milk; they really love drinking flavored milk and that’s very important for the essential nutrients in milk,” said MilkPEP CEO Vivien Godfrey. “It’s a happy balance between some added sugars but making sure that the kids actually drink the milk as opposed to taking the white milk on the lunch line and not in fact drinking it.”