Every so often, an article really grabs my attention. The latest, from the New York Times, discusses the safety of a method used for processing beef.
Some key things to me:
– they’re selling fat and trimmings and calling it “processed beef” while an FDA scientist wrote in 2002 that it was “pink slime”:
“Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef “pink slime” in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”
and
“I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”
There is more:
- The company is dosing this “food product” with ammonia to sterilize it – and then succeeded in getting the government to allow them to keep this secret from consumers
- The ammonia treatment fails repeatedly – yet never prompts a single recall
- The ammonia smell is so strong in some batches that schools and prisons have returned it as inedible. (Since ammonia content was kept secret and off the label, Georgia officials assumed it was an accident. Georgia detected so much ammonia it was similar to contamination incidents which had sickened school children.)
- McDonald’s and Burger King use this pink slime as a cheap additive to make their beef go farther in their burgers.
Jill says
This is incredably scary and I don’t want to eat another burger ever again..now i’m kinda scared of ground beef! I guess its time to go to a REAL butcher and WATCH them ground up the beef in front of me to be sure! Foul and disgusting! There must be a law put in place to stop them! Its NOT right!
QV says
While the ammonia thing is of course disturbing some of the rest of it seems to prey on the ill informed predisposed to alarmism.
“they’re selling fat and trimmings and calling it “processed beef” while an FDA scientist wrote in 2002 that it was “pink slime”:”
Fat, trimmings, organs & off cuts pureed into a pink sludge….um…sounds like the base of quite a bit of charcuterie.
Remember when people would talk of all the nasty bits that went into sausage & hotdogs and whatnot? Lips & assholes?
The same people who were repulsed by the thought of that are now paying premium prices for headcheese,crepinette,bung,brain,tongue and more.
Don’t get me wrong I know that horrible things go on in industrial meat processing and the ammonia thing is outrageous to be sure but when an article intends to horrify by naming parts of the animal, or trimmings or fat or even the fact it is processed into sludge (again-pate, terrines, forcemeats, etc) it discredits itself.
ILikeYourNewHaircut says
Dear QV,
A question.
If somebody ground up hot dogs, and put it into ground beef, could they call the end product “Ground Beef”?
If somebody grounds up organ meat, adds ammonia, and puts it into ground beef, is the end result “Ground Beef?
I would say no to both of these questions.
I think you’re taking offense to the terminology used. But I think the focus should be put towards the chemically laced meat filler.
QV says
Jill, lest you think the “ill-informed-alarmist” thing was aimed at you…your response was not up when I typed mine but mine showed up after yours.
I just don’t want any misunderstandings as I seem to attract them…
KevinS says
I went to grinding my own about 7 to 8 years ago.
Gary says
Guess I’ll be limiting my burger eating to places that I know buy their meat from a local butcher and Burgerville.
Jill says
Well QV thanks..but i’m also NOT one to buy those funky types of meat..no tongue,brain, rocky mountain oysters OR hotdogs for me…i just can’t NOT think of what was involved in the making of the product…or where the product was on the animal…so i won’t eat them..
mzwong says
Yes, the best/worst part of this article is that they are selling this stuff to public schools. Schools who know the risks but, by their own admission, need the price cut and so continue to buy it. At least the monitoring for the school purchases appears to be more rigorous than for the rest of us, but I shudder to think that this is what we’re giving our kids to feed their brains and growth. Sure, many parents can afford the time and cost to send their kids with homemade lunches, but how many kids are on free and reduced lunches and have no option but to eat this? And I know, from my own kid’s comments, that most kids love the hot lunch at school. Every day my son begs me to have hot lunch instead of my packed lunch.
sweetpea says
i re-watched Food, Inc, recently and am reminded of the massive amounts of “filler” that goes into almost all ground beef patties served. must be corn based or something. i think doing it yourself or knowing the butcher is the only way to go (mind you, i haven’t eaten beef in 20 years, so i’m not one to comment really…).