Students and parents, rest assured, “pink slime” is not on the menu in the Auburn School District.

What’s more, said Margaret Dam, the district’s child nutrition coordinator, it won’t be.

“We want to assure our parents we always provide safe meals in our schools,” said Dam, who plans and coordinates the meals cooked and served in the district’s schools.

“Pink slime” – officially known as lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) – is a low-cost meat filler, which is added to ground beef. Recently, since an ABC News investigation revealed that its added to about 70 percent of ground beef sold in the nations’ supermarkets. it has come under the media spotlight.Produced by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. (BPI), LFTB is made by heating fatty, left over meat trimmings to about 100 F, spinning them in a centrifuge to separate most of the fat, treating it with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill E. coli, salmonella and other bacteria. LFTB is then compressed into blocks which are frozen to be later added to ground beef. There is no requirement that LFTB be listed as an ingredient. Before the approval of the ammonium hydroxide process by the Food and Drug Administration in 1974, the beef trimmings used in LFTB were mostly used in dog food and cooking oil.

The ABC story also revealed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture – which contends LFTB is safe for consumption despite bans on the filler in Canada and Great Britain – contracted to buy about 7 million pounds of LFTB from BPI this year to add it to ground beef in its National School Lunch Program. Last week the USDA said it would allow schools to opt out of buying ground beef with LFTB added. That won’t be an issue for Auburn schools because the beef used by the district is already LFTB free.

The district contracts with Kent-based King’s Command to purchase its USDA-funded ground beef products – among them ground beef patties, taco meat and beef crumble. Occasionally, Dam added, the district purchases beef patties commercially from AdvancePierre.

Dam has received letters from both companies stating that neither uses LFTB in its ground beef products.

She also has letters from Burke Incorporated – which does not use any LFTB in its products – and Tyson Food Service – whose letter lists all of its LFTB-free products. Both vendors are expected to bid on the district’s ground beef commodity needs next year.

“When it comes to the beef, we really do feel we have a safe supply because all our vendors have assured us of that,” Dam said.

Next year the district will receive about $350,000 from the USDA to purchase commodity items for school lunches. Dam said she is requesting that about $130,000 of that go towards buying produce, fruit and vegetables, from local producers, in order to improve the nutrition in school lunches.

“Our focus is to follow the new MyPlate next year, and we’re supposed to have half of what we offer to the kids be fresh produce,” Dam said.

MyPlate is the USDA’s new nutritional guideline program which was instituted this past summer. The program replaces the MyPyramid nutritional program.

The district is also addressing nutrition for its students by instituting a “Meatless Monday” menu, where all the dishes use beans and other meatless protein sources.

“Auburn has been working on a plan and trend for the last five years to get rid of as many convenience foods as we can and go towards more whole foods and cooking from scratch,” Dam said.