When ABC News recently exposed the use of a cheap, ammonia-treated filler known as “pink slime” for 70 percent of the ground beef that Americans buy at their supermarkets, consumers predictably recoiled.

Since the report, local supermarkets have stopped selling the beef and the federal government has given the go-ahead for school districts to stop using it for school lunches in the coming year. Locally, Fairfax County recently announced that it would stop buying meat for schools from a producer that sells pink slime.

D.C. public schools, though, don’t use the meat. (Neither have schools in Anne Arundel County.) D.C. school officials confirmed to us that not only have they avoided the offending ground beef, but they’ve also imposed stricter standards, including prohibiting meat that contain “hormones, antibiotics, Genetically Modified Organism(s), unnatural feeds or have been subjected to irradiation or ammonias in the processing phase.” Moreover, we were told, “Local, grass-fed, free-range, hormone and antibiotic free meats are to be used whenever possible.”

Generally speaking, food in D.C. public school cafeterias has improved in recent years, in part due to the 2010 Healthy Schools Act introduced by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and passed by the D.C. Council. The legislation sets higher nutrition standards for school meals, including allowing schools to work directly with farms to purchase food.