Now You'll Know When You're Eating Slime

Last year there was a lot of concern about "pink slime" that was being used in hamburger meat.  The fatty parts of beef are "washed" in ammonium hydroxide and used in the filling of the burger.  In defense of the process, accounts reported that it had been done for years with no harmful effects.  Oh, that makes me feel so much better.  Now, Cargill doesn't say they are going to stop making pink slime, but they are going to tell consumers when they put it in a product.  So watch out for "finely textured beef"whenever you buy beef products.

After Public Outcry, Cargill Says It Will Label Products Made With a Beef Binder

By STEPHANIE STROM

Published: November 5, 2013 in the NY Times

On a day when consumers in Washington State were voting on whether to 

require food companies to label products containing genetically engineered 

ingredients, Cargill announced that it would begin labeling packages of 

ground beef containing what is colloquially known as pink slime.

Pink slime, or what the beef industry prefers to call “finely textured beef,” is made from beef trimmings left over after the processing of higher-quality cuts of meat that is washed in citric acid or ammonia to kill contaminates. It became the stuff of consumer nightmares last year after an ABC News report exposed its widespread use as a binder in ground beef, and companies from Kroger and Safeway to McDonald’s scrambled to drop it from their shelves and products.

“Our research shows that consumers believe ground beef products containing finely textured beef should be clearly labeled,” John Keating, president of Cargill’s beef operations, said in a statement.  “We’ve listened to the public, as well as our customers, and that is why today we are declaring our commitment to labeling finely textured beef.”

Cargill said it had spent 18 months researching consumer attitudes toward pink slime. The company has created a website, groundbeefanswers.com, with information for consumers about its contents, how it is made and what products it can be found in.

Michael Martin, a spokesman for Cargill, noted that not all of its ground beef products contained the binder. It will label those that do, including its Excel brand and the brand Our Certified Ground Beef, starting in the spring, he said. Another company that processes finely textured meat, Beef Products, has sued ABC News for defamation.

Consumer advocates by and large favored better labeling of beef content, even though many of them suggested the furor over the filler was overblown. “This is a good minimum step,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director at Food and Water Watch, which works to promote food safety and sustainability.

But Ms. Lovera said that despite assurances from the Agriculture Department that finely textured meat was safe to eat, she continued to have questions about whether the processes used to protect it from contamination work.

“These meat scraps are prone to contamination,” she said. “Is what they’re doing to clean it enough?”

Cargill does not, however, want to label its products as containing genetically engineered ingredients and is among the food companies that have contributed to fight the labeling initiative in Washington State. Results of that vote will not be known until mail-in ballots are counted.

Ammonia hydroxide for lunch, anyone?

On Facebook today a friend posted a story that would make you puke up your lunch - especially if that lunch was a Big Mac.  The story told of the chef, Jamie Oliver's ongoing battle with Macdonald's and their practice of using "pink slime" in their burgers.

According to the FB account, the fatty parts of beef are “washed” in ammonium hydroxide and used in the filling of the burger. Before this process, according to Oliver, the food is deemed unfit for human consumption.

 “Basically, we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest way for dogs, and after this process, is being given to human beings.”

Besides the low quality of the meat, the ammonium hydroxide is harmful to health. Oliver calls it “the pink slime process.”

“Why would any sensible human being put meat filled with ammonia in the mouths of their children?” asked the chef, who wages a war against the fast food industry.

To be fair, a response was published in Beef Daily on August 13, 2013.  

Here is part of the article by Amanda Radke:

"It’s been more than a year since the industry was “pink-slimed,” a term coined by ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer and British food blogger Jamie Oliver. The term, of course, was the sensational characterization of lean finely textured beef (LFTB). LFTB is a 100% beef product produced by a process developed by Beef Products Inc. (BPI) of Dakota Dunes, SD, which separates fat from lean in beef trim. Until the sensational ABC News expose, LFTB was commonly used as an ingredient in school lunch programs and fast-food burgers. The fact is that billions of pounds of the product have been produced and consumed over the years without any reported problems.

The news report, and the resulting social media campaign, created such a hysteria that demand for LFTB dried up, and BPI was forced to close three of its four LFTB plants and lay off 650 employees. BPI then sued ABC News and others for defamation, and that case continues. But the nasty connotation in consumers' minds that beef is tainted with chemicals persists.

In fact, that notion is being perpetuated by Oliver’s most recent musings. His war against the fast-food industry has been largely aimed at McDonald’s, which announced earlier this year that the chain will revise its burger recipe to exclude LFTB."

So, shining a light on the fast food industry did have an effect.  Maybe more parents will weigh the convenience of the Macdonald's drive-through against the idea that they really don't know what's in that food they are buying for their little soccer players.

The food scientists are busy in their labs right now trying to come up with some other process, just as gross, to increase their profits.