Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Have you heard about “pink slime” lately? Do you know what it is? You should. According to a number of news reports, pink slime is a “filler” that can be found in approximately 70% of hamburger meat that is sold in supermarkets.
Pink slime is produced by grinding together low-grade trimmings like connective tissue, cow intestines, and beef scraps that would normally be destined for dog food and rendering. (Such trimmings are said to come from the parts of the cow that are highly exposed to fecal matter.) The ground concoction is then simmered in low heat in a centrifuge in order to separate fat and tissue and treated with ammonia-hydroxide to kill pathogens, including salmonella and E. Coli. “The resulting pinkish substance is later blended into traditional ground beef and hamburger patties.” The United States Department of Agriculture says it’s safe to eat.
Kit Foshee, who was once a corporate quality manager at BPI–a company that manufactures pink slime–said of the substance, “It kind of looks like Play-Doh. It’s pink and frozen. It’s not what the typical person would consider meat.” Foshee claims that he was fired by BPI after he had complained “about the process used to make the filler, and the company’s claims about it.”
Because the FDA considers ammonia to be a processing agent, it’s not required to be listed as an ingredient on food labels.
Pink Slime – What is REALLY in your Hamburger – ABCNews.com
‘Pink Slime’ Outrage: Beef Industry Responds
Pink Slime in School Lunches
The Daily reported that 7,000,000 pounds of this “beef” product “have been scheduled as part of school lunch programs” in this country. In fact, nearly 7% of the ground beef used in school lunches will have been treated with ammonium-hydroxide.
Two microbiologists who formerly worked for the Food Safety Inspection Service think the continued purchase of pink slime for school lunches “makes no sense.” Gerald Zirnstein, one of the microbiologists, told The Daily that he wouldn’t want his son, who is now two-years-old, eating it when he starts going to school. Zirnstein coined the term “pink slime” after he toured a BPI facility in 2002 when he was conducting “an investigation into salmonella contamination in packaged ground beef.”
Retired microbiologist Carl Custer said that the treated beef trimmings were originally called “soylent pink.” He added, “We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat.”
Note: US schools, agricultural and health authorities don’t call beef trimmings treated with ammonium-hydroxide “pink slime.” They call it “lean fine textured beef.”
Dr. John Torres said that “ammonia does not cause a major health risk to our bodies.” He said he was “more concerned about the possible E. coli and salmonella that could still exist in the beef by-products, even after the chemical treatment.” Torres added that these chemically-treated by-products don’t contain the same amount of nutrients as pure-ground beef. He continued, “It’s one of those things, “Do I want my child to have this? On a short-term, moderate basis: maybe. On a long-term basis: no.”
Note: In January, three fast-food chains—McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King–decided to stop using “pink slime” in their products after pressure from Jamie Oliver, a celebrity chef.
‘Pink Slime’ eliminated from fast food, going to school lunches
Where Your Beef Burger Comes From
SOURCES
Partners in ‘slime’: Feds keep buying ammonia-treated ground beef for school lunches (The Daily)
Seven Million Pounds of “Pink Slime” Beef Destined for National School Lunch Program (Yahoo)
The “Pink Slime” in Your Kid’s School Lunch (Mother Jones)
Supermarket Slime, James Cameron Dives Deep, Spring Springs Forward (On Earth)
Pink Slime Found In 70% Of Supermarket Ground Beef In ABC Investigation (Huffington Post)
Pink Slime Criticism Is Overblown, Say Some Food Safety Advocates (Huffington Post)
Where You Can Get ‘Pink-Slime’-Free Beef (ABC News)
70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’ (ABC News)
Pink Slime – Good Enough For School Meals, Not McDonald’s (Medical News Today)
‘Pink slime’ beef additive is used in CISD school lunches (Your Houston News)
‘Pink slime’ eliminated from fast food, but not school lunches (USA Today)
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=8671155
I-Team: Inside look at another type of meat glue
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The I-Team has uncovered more on the growing controversy over meat glue. It’s a product that binds bits and pieces of meat together to look like whole steaks. Now, the ABC7 I-Team looks at how one Midwestern company is helping processors re-make vats of meat they call unsellable into steaks for restaurant tables.
This is one reality in the meat industry.
Corporate video: “The concepts of innovation, efficiency and yield really come into their own in Fibrimex.”
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The video was produced in 1995 to market Fibrimex to meat processors.The ABC7 I-Team found it on YouTube. It shows how small pieces of meat tumbling through a production line are turned into whole filets.
Fibrimex is made from proteins isolated and extracted from cow blood, then purified. In simple terms, it’s a coagulent — the same thing found in your body that heals a wound, but in this case it’s used to “heal” pieces of meat that would be discarded, back together.
Corporate video: “Fibrimex makes it possible to produce a mixture of different meat products or even combinations with fish. What’s more, the use of Fibrimex means a significant reduction in unsaleable parts,” states the corporate video.
Those “unsaleable parts” are often the tougher meat left over after processors cut the best part out of a beef tenderloin. What’s left could be made into hamburger, stew meat or just be thrown out.
The Nebraska-based company that makes Fibrimex and their Dutch business partners defend the practice. They say repurposing all that trim reduces waste. The company’s owner recently talked to journalists by phone.
Owner Christian Penning: “What these people are getting is the same filet mignon meat as they would have otherwise gotten. It’s just produced in a different way but it’s the same cut of muscle meat.”
Penning also told reporters where steaks made with Fibrimex are sold.
Penning: “Our product is mostly applied in meat processing operations and then provided to retailers, as well as restaurant chains and as well as smaller restaurants.”
That is where things get complicated. The federal government says meat treated with meat glue is safe to eat but it has to be labeled. That doesn’t apply to restaurants, so you wouldn’t know you’re eating it, and that could pose a health risk if you eat it rare.
On a normal steak, the inside is sterile so it doesn’t have to be thoroughly cooked.
But on a glued steak, the center may be contaminated with bacteria that gets in during processing, so it must be cooked through to be safe.
Amanda Hitt, director of the Food Integrity Program: “That isn’t OK to say that it’s just safe. It has to be something that we wanted in the first place, not something that was put upon us that we have to deal with.”
The Food Integrity Program is a non-profit in Washington that provides legal help to industry whistleblowers. They exposed how pink slime makes its way into hamburger. Now they’re telling consumers to say no to meat glue.
Hitt: “There is an incredible amount of power in knowing and there is an incredible amount of power in asking and then there is an incredible amount of power in telling them that you are not interested in eating these products.”
Steve McCarthy is banking on a backlash against mass-produced meat. He’s part owner of Prather Ranch Meat Company in the San Francisco Ferry Building. His business model is to raise and process small numbers of animals humanely with no additives like meat glue.
McCarthy: “A lot of meat that’s raised conventionally is cheap. It’s artificially cheap.”
The meat at Prather costs more but McCarthy says the business is thriving and that customers are willing to pay for peace of mind.
McCarthy: “If you’re concerned about where your food is coming from, meat in particular, if you spend more money, a little bit more money, on a higher quality product, possibly less often, you can change the quality of food that’s on your table for your family.”
The ABC7 I-Team contacted over a dozen chain restaurants in California to determine who uses meat glue. It’s no surprise that many restaurants did not respond, but a few are distancing themselves from the product, including: Sizzler, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee’s, Chili’s and BJ’s restaurants. All say they don’t use any form of meat glue.
end of article
Wow. I think what is wrong with this world is ignorant trouble makers who resort to childish name calling about ground beef. Don’t you people have jobs that you need to go to instead of spreading roomers. I hope you know that ammonium hydroxide is treating most foods such as ground beef, cheese, shelf goods, and any other product that is mass produced to the public to PROTECT THEM FROM GETTING, not to hurt them! Secondly, lean finely textured ground beef has been produced for over 25 years. All of you have grown up on this product which is made from the trimmings off steaks and takes the extra meat off the bone. It is then ground up to make your meat leaner so you do not end up eating tons of fat. I hope you know what your doing will cost thousands of people their jobs and send the price of beef skyrocketing. Soon you’ll wish you didn’t post so many lies when you can no longer afford to feed your family and your tax dollars are going towards paying for the state benefits of everyone who is out of a job because of your words. Also, I hope you start posting links from the “reputable” websites your getting this information off of.
‘Pink Slime’ Beef Manufacturer Suspends Production At 3 Of 4 Plants Amid Outcry
By BETSY BLANEY 03/26/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/pink-slime-beef-plants_n_1380111.html
Excerpt:
LUBBOCK, Texas — The maker of “pink slime” suspended operations Monday at all but one plant where the beef ingredient is made, acknowledging recent public uproar over the product has cost the company business.
Craig Letch, director of food quality and assurance for Beef Products Inc., declined to discuss financial details, but said business has taken a “substantial” hit since social media exploded with worry over the ammonia-treated filler and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools drew hundreds of thousands of supporters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided school districts may stop using it and some retail chains have pulled products containing it from their shelves.
Federal regulators say the product, which has been used for years and is known in the industry as “lean, finely textured beef,” meets food safety standards. But critics call the product an unappetizing example of industrialized food production.
This stuff has been going to Mcd Burger King you name it for years. Is anybody going to appoligize to the workers, truck drivers, and other many thousands of people that just lost there jobs? Pathetic.
‘Pink Slime’ Losing Place on School Lunch Menus
By JESS BIDGOOD
3/24/12
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/education/schools-drop-pink-slime-beef-filler-like-a-hot-potato.html?_r=1&hp#
Excerpt:
BOSTON — Andy Gomez, a ninth grader at Brighton High School, was not sure why hamburgers and meatballs had disappeared from the cafeteria, but he was not happy about it. “Today I just ate peanut butter and jelly,” he said. “I don’t like the chicken patty.”
The absence of ground beef at lunch last week — at Brighton High and 43 other public schools here — could be explained by a peek into the freezer, where 21 boxes of ground beef products sat, cordoned off from the rest of the meat by a clinical-looking cover of white paper reading “Do not use.”
This is the frozen mass at the center of growing public concern, stoked by news coverage and social media outrage, over so-called pink slime, the low-cost blend of ammonia-treated bits of cow. It turns out that it constitutes some of the ground beef distributed by the United States Department of Agriculture through its school lunch program, and that it can be found in at least some grocery store beef, though chains including Kroger, Safeway and Stop & Shop have said they will not sell beef that contains it.
This year, McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants also said they would stop using the substance, a filler formally known as lean finely textured beef, in their meat products. And on March 15, as an outcry resulted in hundreds of thousands of people signing online petitions, the Agriculture Department announced that next year it would offer schools a ground beef option that does not contain pink slime. Many school districts said they were planning to sign on.
The Miami-Dade school district, one of the nation’s largest, has already said it would opt for pink-slime-free beef, even though it expected it to cost more (exactly how much remained uncertain). State officials in South Carolina said they would procure only the pink-slime-free ground beef once it became available.
But for some school districts — with administrators fielding phone calls from concerned parents and fretting about past food scares — next fall is not soon enough. The Boston school district, among others, has taken the step of purging all ground beef from its menus. Other districts, like the New York City schools, have begun phasing out ground beef containing the additive from their lunchrooms.
Michael Peck, the director of food and nutrition services for the Boston schools, said the district had decided to hold and isolate its entire inventory of ground beef, leaving over 70,000 pounds of beef — worth about $500,000, Mr. Peck estimated — confined to a warehouse until the district knows more about what is in it.
“It’s another example of the alteration of our food supply,” said Mr. Peck, who is concerned about the use of ammonia hydroxide gas to kill bacteria in the product. “Have we created another unknown safety risk?”
‘Pink Slime’ Will Be a Choice for Schools
By Ben Forer | ABC News
http://news.yahoo.com/pink-slime-choice-schools-230530972–abc-news.html
Excerpt:
ABC News has the learned that on Thursday the U.S. Department of Agriculture will announce that starting this fall, schools will be able to choose whether or not they buy hamburger that contains lean finely textured beef known as ” pink slime.”
The announcement comes one week after ABC News reported on the beef filler commonly known as “pink slime,” which is found in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets.
70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/70-percent-of-ground-beef-at-supermarkets-contains-pink-slime/
Excerpt:
Zirnstein and his fellow USDA scientist, Carl Custer, both warned against using what the industry calls “lean finely textured beef,” widely known now as “pink slime,” but their government bosses overruled them.
According to Custer, the product is not really beef, but “a salvage product … fat that had been heated at a low temperature and the excess fat spun out.”
The “pink slime” is made by gathering waste trimmings, simmering them at low heat so the fat separates easily from the muscle, and spinning the trimmings using a centrifuge to complete the separation. Next, the mixture is sent through pipes where it is sprayed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria. The process is completed by packaging the meat into bricks. Then, it is frozen and shipped to grocery stores and meat packers, where it is added to most ground beef.
The “pink slime” does not have to appear on the label because, over objections of its own scientists, USDA officials with links to the beef industry labeled it meat.
“The under secretary said, ‘it’s pink, therefore it’s meat,’” Custer told ABC News.
ABC News has learned the woman who made the decision to OK the mix is a former undersecretary of agriculture, Joann Smith. It was a call that led to hundred of millions of dollars for Beef Products Inc., the makers of pink slime.
When Smith stepped down from the USDA in 1993, BPI’s principal major supplier appointed her to its board of directors, where she made at least $1.2 million over 17 years.
‘Pink Slime’ Whistleblower Kit Foshee Interviewed on Network TV
by Sarah Damian on March 09, 2012
http://foodwhistleblower.org/blog/23-2012/313-pink-slime-whistleblower-kit-foshee-interviewed-on-network-tv
“The Daily, which did a follow-up story today focusing on Foshee’s whistleblowing, highlights the overall concern of ammoniated beef.
“BPI is marketing themselves as a pinnacle of safety,” Foshee said. “It’s all lies. It’s all marketing.”
Most farmers markets in Texas sell grass fed beef and you can buy it at some grocery stores and coops. I don’t eat much beef but am not interested in eating corporately farmed unsustainable meat or chicken. There is a BBQ place in Austin that uses only organic grass fed beef and the line forms at 9 am for lunch.
Garbage in, garbage out.
At least pink slime has given rise to an entirely new scientific discipline.
The one that continues to study pink slime’s impact on the brain.
Down here on the pea farm we only eat vegetables grown by local farmers. Our fare in our congregation is basically peas and porridge. We started a political party based on the glory of peas. The Pamlico County Pea Party is meeting this week if y’all wish to attend. Our platform is basic and simple–vegetarians for equality and liberty–all people invited.
I wonder if kosher or organic ground meat uses these tactics. I know that many kosher places grind their own meat because it is cheaper in the long run for them. I have seen how it is done. You take strips of chuck meat and put it in a meat grinder. Ta da! Fresh ground meat. Though I stay away from red meat because of the high cholesterol.
pete
lol and thank you.
Excellent posting, Elaine M.
Elaine,
That is one sad story about he cows being forced to eat corn.
i’m gonna go shoot bambi’s mom now.