Whistleblowers: 70 percent of U.S. ground beef contains ‘pink slime’

[IDemo]

Let’s hope you didn’t eat a hamburger before clicking on this story.

A former U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist has come forward with a startling tale of how a substance known as “pink slime” has been embedded in about 70 percent of ground beef sold in the U.S. — a topic ABC News investigated for a segment Wednesday night.

“Pink slime” is largely made up of connective tissue that used to be reserved only for dog foods. It was not classified as “meat” because it was largely seen as unfit for human consumption. It also contains ammonia, which is used to kill off bacteria so people who eat it do not get sick.

But in the early 90s, former undersecretary of agriculture Joann Smith decided that it was meat, allowing it to enter the human food chain. When she left her post in 1993, she immediately took a job with Beef Products, Inc. on their board of directors.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/08/whistleblowers-70-percent-of-u-s-ground-beef-contains-pink-slime/

[phantom power]

1. more revolving door between govt and corporations

[IDemo]

16. This story is almost a metaphor for what the revolving door gets US citizens

slimed.

[PADemD]

2. I think I'll start grinding my own hamburger.

[denverbill]

7. I've been grinding my own since noticing labels with 'beef flavoring added'.

The only pre-ground I buy is name brand organic (Laura's) but that is rare.

[DCKit]

26. Chuck roasts make excellent hamburger.

On sale, it's not much more expensive than pink slime.

Kind of lost my taste for hamburger when I first heard about this issue, though.

[LaurenG]

3. I wish everyone would consider giving up meat at every meal maybe even for days at a time.

This is disgusting in every sense of the word. No one needs to eat ammoniated by-products.

[AllyCat]

4. Someone I knew about 10 years ago worked as a food rep for restaurants.

She told me about this stuff then and I just couldn't believe it. I don't eat meat, but my husband was eating at the large, national, yes-you've-heard-of-it mexican food chain she said used it exclusively. I was able to convince him to stop eating it...however, I never suspected how far this went into our food supply. Nasty. Just NASTY!!! Really glad I have not eaten meat in decades. Except this isn't meat...

[TreasonousBastard]

12. And just think-- they fill the tacos with something called a "meat hose"...

Can your life ever be the same after knowing that?

[AllyCat]

24. You have just grossed me out for the day. True or not...I'm grossed out. Thanks a ton :)

[TreasonousBastard]

27. Sorry, but you should have seen the room when I first heard that...

at least no one actually threw up.

[azurnoir]

5. ok so the meat industry calls it "finely textured lean ground beef" but

what's it called in grocery stores? I'll venture a guess and say perhaps it's in the ground beef sold in tubes?

and school lunches I'm having a talk with my kid when he gets home, he's old enough to understand this

[aikoaiko]

6. As an omnivore, I don't mind a little connective tissue. It can be tastey, in fact.

Last edited Fri Mar 9, 2012, 05:37 PM - Edit history (1)

[ProdigalJunkMail]

8. go to a butcher you trust

or grind your own...the only way to know what is going in ground anything...

sP

[hobbit709]

9. Grocery I go to grinds their own daily.

They also use 100% natural grass-fed beef.
you can taste the difference between it and what the big chains sell.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Same here.

We do not eat much beef at all, except for ground round from a local grocery that grinds its own.
Between the pink slime and the recently exposed "meat glue" I have no appetite for commercial beef.

[ThomThom]

20. also lactic acid is used to tenderize beef (milk product)

I have problems with dairy and stopped eating beef that is not approved by the rabbi.

[RC]

10. Don't eat beef.

I stopped back when the bu$h administration was hiding cases of Mad Cow in the US food chain.

[nobodyspecial]

11. Glad I haven't eaten meat for nearly a decade.

Disgusting.

[RebelOne]

25. Me too. Been vegetarian for over 12 years. n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Story Doesn't Say Which Grade

Hamburger meat is sold in different grades at the grocer. Ground beef, ground chuck, ground round, ground sirloin. Wondering if this is just for the low end cuts, or for everything.
GAC

[sarcasmo]

15. One of the many reasons to stay away from beef.

[jsmirman]

17. This is the Big Ag/Factory Farm Economy

that a number of people here at DU, even, seem regularly inclined to defend.

This is what I've been saying: if you care so little about cruelty toward the animals, finding it irrelevant in the face of profit, what are the odds that you give a shit about your human consumers?

You take your life in your hands - and your children's lives (see the Hallmark school meat scandal) when you allow Big Ag to dictate all the terms to our Government and to the legal system - which they do.

[bhikkhu]

18. I always figured that was why "ground beef" existed, and why it was cheap

...being the leftovers and trimmings the butcher couldn't sell as recognizable cuts of meat, but didn't want to waste.

If you don't want trimmings, don't buy processed meats like ground beef and hot dogs and so forth - problem solved.

[saras]

23. Back in the olden days...

I'm old enough to remember my dad buying half cows (they called them "sides of beef&quot . If you cut up a half cow into useable cuts, you're either going to throw out a hell of a lot of meat, you're going to make an enormous amount of soup, which is really hard to can safely, or you're going to make a lot of hamburger or sausage.

It's not the trimmings part that makes pink slime bad, it's the unhealthy animals, mixture of large numbers of animals, toxic bacteria, disinfecting chemicals, and the chemical byproducts of all the above reacting that makes it bad.

There isn't ANY food, no matter how healthy, that I couldn't make foul with that kind of treatment. Mash it up and let some of it get really old. Keep it moist so stuff grows in it. When it gets too toxic to eat, sterilize it with some sort of corrosive chemical. Mix it with finely mashed fresh food, and let it age a few days. Sounds yummy, huh?

[madrchsod]

19. i buy where i can see the people actually grinding up the cuts of meat

costs a bit more but it`s worth it.

[kestrel91316]

21. Buy a hunk of chuck and have them grind it for you,

WITHIN sight (so they can't substitute their own cheap contaminated crap. Better yet, buy the hunk of chuck and bring it home and grind it yourself.

On the rare occasion I use ground beef that's what I do, and have for over 10 years.

[Kali]

22. NEVER buy that crap in a "chub" or any premade patties

unless you know they are made right there in the store from actual chunks of meat.

have whatever is on sale ground for hamburger - leaner cuts are fine for most all cooking, need a little fat for a good hamburger.

better yet get a quarter or half from somebody you know and have it cut how you want. a quarter will fit in most freezers easy. Some places will sell something called a "box" with even less than a quarter - it will have a roast or two a couple steaks, some stew meat and maybe 10 lbs of hamburger.