Sludge...Did the Obama administration knowingly give contaminated food to a local DC food kitchen?
The produce used on the Food Network's Jan. 3 Iron Chef of America two-hour special White House show was billed as being from the White House garden. But the show did not disclose that "stunt double vegetables" were used and not produce from the First Family's garden.Here's where the story goes from gaffe to worse:
...
Viewers were not explicitly told that the vegetables in "Kitchen Stadium" were not the ones they had seen the chefs harvest. Various participants in the show misled viewers with references to "using radishes from the White House garden" and other similar mentions. Except for the honey, no food on the show came from the White House.
Source: AOL Politics Daily
Mrs. Obama's East Wing told me the vegetables picked at the White House garden that day in October were donated to a local food kitchen, so nothing went to waste. The week between the harvest the cook-off was due to "scheduling/technical" reasons.Nothing to see here. It was all a scheduling snafu and nothing went to waste. Move along...
Source: AOL Politics Daily
But wait! It gets worse!
When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer.Here are the questions that won't be answered:
This is a fairly common practice with one huge problem. Sewage sludge tends to be laced with anything that people pour down the drain and often contains heavy metals. Not surprisingly, the National Park Service tested the dirt beneath Michelle's garden and found the plot has highly elevated levels of lead averaging 93 parts per million. That's below the 400 ppm that the Environmental Protection Agency says is a threat to human health. But I'd wager that Sasha, Malia and Barack won't be getting arugula or tomatoes from this garden any time soon.
Source: Daily Finance
- Did "Mrs. Obama's East Wing" lie when they claimed all of the food went to a local food kitchen?
- Did the Obama administration give contaminated food to the local food kitchen?
- Did the Obama administration know the food was contaminated when they gave it to the local food kitchen?
- Did the contamination prevent the food from being used on the TV show Iron Chef America?
