Long Beach students receive meal with mold-like substance

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Thousands of families in Long beach depend on the school district’s grab-and-go meals but this week a breakfast was handed out with wat looked like mold on the sandwiches.

A mom posted a photo to social media only to find out she wasn’t alone.

Long Beach mother of two Marie Elias started picking up the free meals provided by the Long Beach Unified School District this week. She was shocked when her 13-year-old son opened the breakfast sandwiches they were given yesterday.

Holding up the top biscuit from the sandwich, which was covered in a blackish substance, she said “I don’t know what child would eat this or what parent would give this to their children - I mean...look at it!”

“Not only is the top bread like that, the bottom bread’s like that, the egg is like that - I mean if you look closely at the egg, it’s just all over the place,” she said.

Marie assumed that it was mold and immediately took to social media to see if other parents in Long Beach had received the same meals. Responses started flooding in.

“A lot of Hispanic mothers started messaging me in Spanish and are like - I don’t know what to do - should I feed it to my kid? I don’t have a meal in the morning,” she said, adding that many parents in Long Beach depend on the meals to feed their children.

LBUSD quickly responded, sending an email to parents acknowledging the discolored sandwiches and informing families that they were still safe to eat.

“In this instance, there was some harmless discoloration on the biscuit itself due to wheat oxidation, and so we notified the parents of that and we’ve told them that it’s harmless if consumed, but we understand that it doesn’t look very appealing. So you might just want to toss it out and then we’ll start again tomorrow,” said LBUSD Public Information Director Chris Eftychiou.

He said that despite the sheer number of meals that have been handed out - more than a million since the pandemic began in March - this was the first time that an item had been discolored.

“With that volume of meals, occasionally there might be an issue. This is not a harmful situation, but they’ll take a look at it so it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Families who received the sandwiches were given the option to return them to their pick-up locations in exchange for another breakfast option.

The meals are currently being handed out at 78 school locations in Long Beach. Kids under 18 are eligible to receive them, whether they’re enrolled in LBUSD schools or not.

Elias said that despite the disappointing experience, she is still grateful for the program, and just doesn’t want to see this happen again.

“Not all of us can afford the extra meals for children - not all of us have extra funds right now,” she said. “My only intention was to let other parents know to check the meals.”