And four days ago, she started an online petition to get what is known as "pink slime" out of our kids school lunch meat. 

This substance is made of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other trimmings and then is treated with ammonia hydroxide – a colorless solution used to kill pathogens and usually found in concentrations up to 30%, used in household cleaners, photography, and fertilizers, textiles, rubber, and pharmaceuticals, and also used as a refrigerant. 

In just four days, that petition has garnered over 100,000 signatures by concerned citizens asking for the USDA to take action as seen here, and it is still going.

You can learn more about the risks of "pink slime", as cited by microbiologists at the USDA, in a piece I wrote about it for Prevention here, and why companies like McDonald's and Taco Bell might have opted out. 

And long before this courageous work, Bettina has been recognized around the country.  

At AllergyKids, we named her a Food Hero last year because of her important work.  We are firm believers that parents have a right to know what they are feeding their children and should be given the opportunity to make an informed choice when it comes to feeding their families. But we're not the only ones. She has been recognized by Jamie Oliver, Rachel Ray, and across the national media for her amazing efforts, most recently by Bloomberg News. 

As parents of four children who are in the public school system, we and countless others are grateful for the courageous work that she is doing for the 30+ million children that are part of the National School Lunch Program and invite you to join us and the thousands and thousands of other parents of school aged kids and call on the USDA to get the "pink slime" off of the lunch trays.