Posted on 03/14/2012 5:20:23 PM PDT by Libloather
Dem presses USDA to ban 'pink slime' in school lunches
By Mike Lillis - 03/14/12 06:00 PM ET
A Maine Democrat is pressing the Obama administration to ban "pink slime" in school cafeterias.
Rep. Chellie Pingree said the product – a blend of beef scraps treated with ammonia and used as a ground-beef filler – is "gross" and unfit for consumption by schoolchildren.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Pingree is urging the agency to abandon its plan to continue buying hamburgers and other meats containing the product—historically used in animal feeds—for the nation's schools.
"It is wrong to feed children a slurry that was formerly only used for dog food," Pingree wrote to Vilsack on Wednesday. "I hope you will do everything in your power to eliminate it from school lunch programs around the country."
Manufactured by Beef Products, Inc. and Cargill Meat Solutions, "pink slime" is the unflattering term attached to "lean finely textured beef," a mash of beef scraps that are treated with ammonia hydroxide, which kills certain bacteria and is used as an inexpensive way to bulk up ground beef.
Pingree and other critics of the product note that it's made up largely of connective tissue, so it shouldn't be packaged as meat. Additionally, they're questioning the effectiveness of the ammonia treatments in killing E. Coli, Salmonella and other meat-born pathogens.
The issue has churned headlines in recent months largely due to blogs, an internet petition and a celebrity chef all questioning the safety and appropriateness of adding the product to ground beef.
Both the meat industry and the Department of Agriculture say the product is safe for human consumption, including in the nation's schools. But the negative attention led a number of fast-food chains, including McDonald's and Burger King, to stop buying the product last year.
Pingree asked Vilsack, "If these fast food chains won't serve pink slime, why should school cafeterias?"
The Maine Democrat said she's been talking to the meat industry about the product, but those discussions haven't convinced her the additive is safe.
“The beef industry sent my office an email the other day describing pink slime as ‘wholesome and nutritious’ and said the process for manufacturing it is ‘similar to separating milk from cream,’ Pingree said in a statement accompanying her letter to Vilsack.
"I don’t think a highly processed slurry of meat scraps mixed with ammonia is what most families would think of as ‘wholesome and nutritious.’”
U.S. defends treated meat dubbed "pink slime" in school meals
I think they should also remove all the pink slime from the classroom.
This article made me feel sick just reading it.
It’s in 70% of store bought ground beef too.
ABC News has a good story somewhere listing which companies use it as an additive and which don’t.
Send it to the White House and to Congress for the cafeteria. Let them eat pink slime.
You haven’t lived until you’ve had a ‘pink slime’ malt!
Let them serve it in the Congressional and Senatorial
lunch rooms.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve had a ‘pink slime’ malt!”
—
Gee,thanks for that !!!!!!!!!
My understanding is that a huge percentage (~75%) of the ground beef available on the market is treated this way.
So we are all just one step away from Soylent Pink.
I betcha I know someone who would snarf it down.
Send it to the Congressional cafeteria.
Let them eat it.
Or would that be redundant? Hmmm...
I looked for such a story at ABC; here's the one I found: Is Pink Slime in the Beef at Your Grocery Store?
The story listed Publix, Costco, HEB, and Whole Foods as not using pink slime: ABC News emailed the top 10 grocery chains in America. Only Publix, Costco, HEB and Whole Foods responded, saying they don’t use pink slime. No word yet from the rest.
Well done by all four of those companies; Publix, Costco, HEB, and Whole Foods are serving their customers well by not larding their ground beef this noxious substance.
I think MooseChelle is only grubbin on Kobe beef these days.
absolutely...
At least the shirts are already made ...
They approved it to be used in grocery store hamburger, too. Buy a roast and have it ground by the butcher. Disgusting!
It is neither lean nor fresh!
That thang’s got it’s own zip code!
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