Luis Escobar / La Paz
A commercial yogurt has a shelf life of 30 days or more before it expires. In contrast, the same product that is distributed for school breakfast in La Paz is valid for 10 days. The Mayor’s Office indicated that schoolchildren should consume these foods on the day. The groups of parents complained about the limited validity of time that these products have.
A yogurt sold on the streets is made from low-fat milk, sugar syrup, skim milk powder, fruit pulp, stabilizers, dairy cultures, and preservatives. This last product allows the time of validity of this product to be prolonged.
Instead, the Yogofrut plastic cup that is part of the school breakfast contains fluid pasteurized milk, sugar, fruit pulp, vegetable pulp, acidity regulator, stabilizers, fortifiers and vitamin “A” without preservatives. This preparation determines that it has a validity period of 10 days.
“The products that we distribute -as part of the complementary food- are completely natural. No preservatives or preservatives are used. In general, the use of these chemicals makes the expiration date longer or more extensive,” said the head of the Municipal Secretary of Education of La Paz, Amparo Morales.
According to the official, the breakfast components are natural “so that students do not consume chemicals.” “The idea is that schoolchildren can consume this food on a daily basis and in the classroom to strengthen their body. They are being fortified to improve their immunity even more at this stage that we seek to combat Covid-19, ”explained Morales and assured that some schoolchildren save the food and do not consume it on the day.
The nutritionist and head of Nutritional Food Planning of the Mayor’s Office of La Paz, Marisol Layme, said that milk, chocolate and flavored with cereal can last up to 30 days, but yogurt is valid for 10 days.
UHT (ultra-pasteurized) and extruded products (cereals) that have a long shelf life are delivered so that they can be consumed for 15 days.
Baked foods are valid for five days and among the most important are cereal bread, milk and cinnamon thread, sponge cake, rice bread with cheese, cheese bun and oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips. This last product has a 30-day shelf life.
Issues
On March 16, the food supplier and distributor company delivered healthy dairy drinks to the United Nations educational unit in Miraflores. The school board of the establishment and the management of that center kept the product. On March 22, the student community began to deliver the food despite the fact that its validity date had already expired.
Richard Flores, representative of the parents of the Cotahuma macrodistrict, protested the short time the products were valid. “We are in an emergency for school breakfast. We see that they distribute them with exact dates and (when it expires) it harms our children. The boys eat and get diarrhea. I insisted to a person from the Directorate of Education so that he can try the school breakfast and he did not want to do it, ”he said.
At the beginning of the month, Flores organized the parents of several schools in his macrodistrict and they paralyzed Sopocachi. They installed blocking points on the avenues 6 de Agosto, 20 de Octubre, Jaimes Freyre and others. He threatened to continue the protests the following week.
Yesterday, the president of Fejuve La Paz, Justino Apaza, declared that the sector is in a state of emergency. “The school breakfast was found in poor condition (…) and it is an attack. Next week we will march.”
Despite the statement, Apaza did not specify in which educational units they found the irregularity or on what date.
The sanctions
- Report The Mayor’s Office of La Paz will sanction the companies that supply the school breakfast food. “Any offense will be sanctioned according to the table of penalties,” said the municipal director of Education, Ever Carazas. He assured that on April 1 the “adequacy period” of 20 days for the companies that provide school breakfast ended. This food is delivered from March 7 to public and convention schools in the municipality of La Paz.
- Control Before the distribution to the students, the Siremu supervises the quality of the finished products in the industries and the delivery of the food rations to the educational units.
