Pink slime in ground beef: What's the big deal?
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Report: USDA school lunch meat contains "pink slime"
McDonald's scraps "pink slime" from burgers
Food advocates are now rallying around the headlines trying to get the meat off supermarket shelves and school lunch trays.
Though the term "pink slime" has been used pejoratively for at least several years, it wasn't until last week that social media suddenly exploded with worry and an online petition seeking its ouster from school lunches that quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of supporters.
Dr. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University thinks the nickname makes it easier for food advocates to flex their case.
"It sounds disgusting," said Nestle. "A lot of people have been writing about it. Therefore, more people know about it, therefore more people are queasy about it, particularly when you start thinking about how this stuff turns up in school lunches," she said.
Just what exactly is pink slime?
It's actually "lean finely textured beef," a low-cost ingredient in ground beef made from fatty left over meat trimmings from other cuts. The bits are heated to about 100 F and spun to remove most of the fat, then compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. The product, made by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. (BPI), is then exposed to "a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas" to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.
There are no precise numbers on how prevalent the product is and it does not have to be labeled as an ingredient. Past estimates have ranged as high as 70 percent; one industry official estimates it is in at least half of U.S. ground meat and burgers.
The product has also been on the market for years and federal regulators say it meets standards for food safety. But advocates for wholesome food have denounced the process as a potentially unsafe and unappetizing example of industrialized food production.
The epithet "pink slime," coined by a federal microbiologist, has appeared in the media at least since a critical 2009 New York Times report. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has railed against it and it made headlines after McDonald's and other major chains last year discontinued their use of ammonia-treated beef, HealthPop reported.
But "pink slime" outrage seemed to reach new heights last week amid reports by The Daily. The Daily piece dealt with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's purchase of meat that included "pink slime" for school lunches.
The story touched a nerve with Houston resident Bettina Siegel, whose blog "The Lunch Tray" focuses on kids' food. On March 6, she started an online petition on Change.org asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to "put an immediate end to the use of `pink slime' in our children's school food."
"When I put it up, I had this moment of embarrassment," she said, "What if only 10 people sign this?"
By Wednesday afternoon, the electronic petition had more than 220,000 signatures. Change.org organizers said that explosive growth is rare among the 10,000 petitions started there every month.
Meanwhile, Google searches for "pink slime" spiked dramatically. But why is "pink slime" striking a nerve all of a sudden?
Issues with broad interest - such as food safety - can explode when they're picked up and disseminated by widely connected people, said Marc A. Smith, director of the Social Media Research Foundation.
"What's happening is that the channels whereby this flood can go down this hill have expanded," Smith said "The more there are things like Twitter, the easier it is for these powder kegs to explode."
Siegel thinks the added element of kids' school lunches set off this round.
"That's what upset me. This idea that children are passively sitting in a lunch room eating what the government sees fit to feed them and McDonald's has chosen not to use it, but the government is still feeding it to them," she said. "That really got my ire."
The USDA - which did not directly address Siegel's petition - buys about a fifth of the food served in schools nationwide. The agency this year is contracted to buy 111.5 million pounds of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program. About 7 million pounds of that is from Beef Products Inc., though the pink product in question never accounts for more than 15 percent of a single serving of ground beef.
"All USDA ground beef purchases must meet the highest standards for food safety," agency spokesman Aaron Lavallee said in an email. "USDA has strengthened ground beef food safety standards in recent years and only allows products into commerce that we have confidence are safe." Beef Product Inc. stresses that its product is 100 percent lean beef and is approved by a series of industry experts. The company's new website, pinkslimeisamyth.com, refutes some common criticisms of the product. For example it says some of the widely circulating photos of the slime are in fact chicken parts.
The National Meat Association also has joined the fight, refuting that the product comes from "scraps destined for pet food." The association also said that ammonium hydroxide is used in baked goods, puddings and other processed foods.
"It's one of those things. It's the aesthetics of it that just gets people's attention," Association CEO Barry Carpenter said. "And in this case, it's not even legitimate aesthetics of it. It's a perception of what it is."
Proponents of the process stress that it is both federally regulated and safe. Though Nestle said the focus on safety misses the larger point.
"I'm not arguing that that stuff is unsafe," she said, "I'm arguing that it's the lowest common denominator."
What do you think about the pink slime controversy?
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look at the additives in all canned good, way worse for you than a little puff of ammonia that can't be detected 5 minutes after applied.
Americans pay a premium price but they do not get premium products.
Thats called being scammed by the way.
Is it safe to eat, safe enough probably. If you ever ate any meat product in a can, or a hamburger from a burger joint you ate a processed product with additives.
You wonder why many of our children are fat and have diabetes, well this is a factor and it must be addressed by concerned citizens.
Everytime we find something that may or may not affect us inadvertently we must address it. If the majority rules that it is unsafe then we must work to eliminate it. Food additives are the way its been for a long time. What did someone mention, hot dogs, bologna.
Everytime we turn around there is something more to deal with. Another additive. We let it go and then there is something else.
If people really want to do somehting, don't let big companies and their executives tell you not to worry, it's safe for you. What they are really saying is, I can make a lot of money by selling you (place your food additives here).
It went to a "rendering plant" or was made and sold as "dog food".
The question we need to ask is; is "pink slime" added to ground round, ground sirlion or any other ground meat we pay a premium price for? If so, someone is going to be in a lot of legal trouble I would guess for deceiving and profitting from the public.
And no, it NOT too late to cry over spilled milk! We have every right to know EXACTLY what is in our food, and WHY it is there. Furthermore, If these production plants are claiming that 25% of the meat they give us is this Pink Slime filler, you can bet your LIFE that the percentage is CONSIDERABLY more than that! Big Corporations do not know how to tell the truth. Worse, they feel that they are above the law, and as such owe the rest of us NOTHING!
This is no longer that era, when you were a poor child who gathered up all of those scraps from the floor of the packing house. People had different values then, and a great many of us were still immigrants learning how to live in this new country. It was hard to turn away from old, long established customs. But, this is the 21st Century. People are better educated, and we want to know what is in the food we're feeding our children! We're also well aware of the pathogens, bacterias, and poisons that can contaminate our food in a busy, and rushed factory setting. Those that own these plants are interested only in PROFIT, GETTING THAT PRODUCT TO MARKET AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. The quicker their employees work, the more product gets to market on any given day. So, they employ foremen, and supervisors, etc. to walk the factory floor, urging the staff to work faster. If they can get away with it, they will work their people straight through the two fifteen minute breaks that they are allowed by law, and through their lunch hour as well. They'll use overtime pay, or the opportunity to leave a half hour earlier than usual as an incentive to persuade workers to keep on working, without a break for lunch. It doesn't matter to them, that overworking their personnel is what causes accidents, serious injuries, and even deaths. What matters is their quota, getting that extra truckload or two to market, and scoring a larger profit for the "Suits" who in their cozy offices, far away from where the dirty work is done. The Board Members score their billion dollar bonuses, ship the money off to foreign banks,so they won't have to pay taxes on it, and everyone, except the consumer is happy.
Your remark about, why doesn't the government do something if this Pink Slime was bad for us, had me rolling on the floor laughing my behind off! Why doesn't government do something? The answer to that is simple. ALL OF OUR POLITICIANS are OWNED, lock, stock, and barrel by the Big Corporations! You can't be so naive that you'd imagine our greedy politicians ran for public office to serve "The People"! Our politicians ran for office for ONE REASON and ONE REASON ONLY...TO BECOME RICHER THAN THEY ALREADY WERE! The moment that it appears these people are going to be elected, the big Corporations, Big Banks, Wall St. Investors, etc. dispatch their lobbyists. The Lobbyists hand over briefcases filled with crisp, $100 dollar bills, and those politicians become the property whatever Corporate CEO that paid him or her off. He or she will vote as that Corporate Executive TELLS them to vote. Anyone who thinks that there is a single politician working in Washington, or at some State level, who is NOT bought and paid for by any number of big Corporations, is an idiot, and still living in the Dark Ages. All any meat production company needs to do, to get complete autonomy, is to send another Lobbyist to visit a certain politician, hand over yet another briefcase filled to the brim with cash, and we're eating Pink Slime! THAT is how the meat industry can add garbage to our food, without having to worry about drawing heat from the government. The Meat Company Exec. orders a couple of company scientists to write up a bullsh*t report claiming that Pink Slime is harmless, nothing but some very lean, and very thin slices of meat, that have been treated with Ammonium Hydroxide - which, just happens to be a deadly, highly corrosive, and extremely explosive, poisonous substance - and that politician that he just bought will agree with the report wholeheartedly. He'll even produce his OWN scientific reports to back up the company reports! The meat company Executive, who probably also owns half of the newspapers and TV stations in the area, as well as the politicians and the scientists, instructs his media stooges to sing the praises of Pink Slime and how healthy, and good tasting it is, and people accept it!
THAT is how they get this garbage past the politicians! And, since the meat company also OWNS the newspapers and TV Stations, they will swear on a MOUNTAIN of Bibles that the stuff is downright good for you!
And, along comes, dimwits like you, who buy the whole lie. Neat, huh? Isn't American wonderful!