Posted on 03/29/2012 6:33:52 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
Hy-Vee Inc., after being pressured by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, announced Wednesday that its stores would continue to offer ground beef containing a controversial ground beef additive.
Producers call it "lean, finely textured beef," but it has become widely known as "pink slime."
Hy-Vee's announcement, revealed during a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Des Moines with Branstad and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, marks a quick reversal of the Iowa-based chain's stance last week to join several other grocery chains and drop products containing the additive.
"The governor called and expressed his concern," Ruth Comer, a Hy-Vee spokeswoman said in an interview. "We were already looking at what we might do to take care of customers, and the governor's voice certainly did factor into the feedback we were already receiving."
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
How come “using all of the buffalo” is now considered a BAD thing by the media?
Terry Branstad, the pro-Pink Slime Candidate!
Yeah, I’d want THAT on my resume!
Continues the trend of Democrats becoming too dense to realize when something is a political loser anymore.
Correct.
May as well outlaw hot dogs too as the brown slurry that is injected into casings (we used to call it “edible diarrhea” when I worked in the plant) is far more disgusting to watch being processed than LFTB. Even the high end hot dogs.
That, however, doesn’t make them any less wholesome or nutritious or even tasty. Processing Pork, Beef, or Poultry is not a pretty business but it’s the nature of the beast(pun intended).
I see Branstad's statement as being pro-consumer, pro-jobs, pro-reason, anti-emotion and anti-ignorance.
But, sure, hopping on the anti-"pink slime" bandwagon is more popular among the common sheeple and much easier than trying to inject some logic into the conversation.
Terry Branstad is a Republican.
...except the loss of several hundred jobs.
And the loss of 900,000 pounds of "burger" per day from the market, thus driving up both the price of ground beef, and also increasing it's average fat content, since the slime is essentially free of fat.
Such a great "win" for "health conscious" consumers.
I've seen articles citing (shudder) Center for Science in the Public Interest, and even they say they are NOT concerned about FTLB; that that are much worse things in food to worry about!
The video clip "Pink Slime Chicken Nuggets Video" is from our Interesting Facts and Statistics Category.
Video Details: Meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. Because it's crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially and dyed with artificial color. The resulting paste goes on to become the main ingredient in many of America's favorite mass-produced and processed meat-like foods and snacks: bologna, hot dogs, salami, pepperoni, Slim Jim-like jerkys, and of course chicken nuggets.
Several months ago the Internet got excited about “pink slime,” something the meat industry makes from leftover cow parts to get more meat out of cows. Videos like this one began circulating the web and getting mixed up with gross pictures like this one (which seems to actually be chicken nugget slime – as best I can tell, beef “pink slime” stole the name from chicken “pink slime,” which is actually slimy, whereas the beef “slime” just looks like solid little meat trimmings.)
“Unlike LFTB, many nuggets and cylinders are made with mechanically separated meat. Chicken, turkey, and pork carcasses, already picked clean of presentable cuts, are pushed through filtering machinery under high pressure, removing every last scrap of tissue. The resulting fragments are used in chicken nuggets, turkey and pork sausage, and many other processed meats.
Mechanically separated beef, unlike chicken, turkey, and pork, is no longer approved for human consumption, because of concerns that bovine spinal cord fluid could spread mad cow disease. The final bits of beef are recovered via other methods that, while highly mechanized, are less traumatic to the carcass, minimizing spinal fluid leakage. So if you’re averse to ingesting spinal fluid, beef-based pink slime is actually a better bet than chicken nuggets or hot dogs containing pork or poultry.”
So, is pink slime any worse than pink cylinders, yellow nuggets, brown breakfast sausage patties, or any number of mystery meat products? Probably not. And for what it's worth, it isn't even slimy.
Pretty much except the fat content is monitored and there are other several methods to produce a chemical lean at the desired level (ie. 85%, 90% etc)
You are absolutetly correct about shorting supply and raising prices though.
Every action, whether legitimate or not, has consequences.
Yes, sir, there is something fundamentally wrong - fraudulent advertising with the intent to rip customers off. LFTB is protein made FROM beef, but it is not meat, because it is treated with ammonia. It is dog food, only not declared as such.
FDA was established long time ago to PREVENT such scams. Now FDA is part of the scam. Don't believe me? How about 100% pure orange juice that is stored in tanks longer than a year and then gets flavor boost from "packs" extracted from fresh oranges? It is pure but not NATURAL.
How about marble dust as food addittive? Or Mercury-laced corn syrup?
Some pets eat better than American school children.
OTOH, why stop there, why not use ox urine and sell it as 100% natural energy drink? How about using cattle manure as additive to 100% natural veggie burgers?
Or even better, for perfect burger use 2/3 chuck + 1/3 flank steak. Ideally, it should be cut in one inch cubes by hand, left overnight in the fridge, then ground and patties made by hand when the mixture reach room temperature.
"The additive is made from the leftover bits of meat that remain after steaks, ribs and roasts have been processed. The hunks of meat, fat and connective tissue are heated to roughly 100 degrees Fahrenheit and mechanically separated to remove most of the fat.
"The mix, which can be up to 95 percent lean, is then pressed into blocks and treated with an ammonia gas to kill harmful bacteria including E. coli and salmonella. The product then is used in ground meat to cut down on its overall fat content."
That is because it is ammonia gas not household style liquid.
For all; the reason the Governors got involved is in trying to protect a few jobs. It was not just the one Governor that spoke up.
Probably have been eating it for years but no matter processed or of my own raising/butchering, I never eat rare meat; ever!
Correct. Another hyper inflated emotional response by folks that don’t know what the he!! they’re talking about.
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