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What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

newfoodeconomy.org

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Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#31

Post by zdragnar »

Pharmakon wrote: post #26
jeffdavis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the bad consequences of this "pink slime"? Is it worse for you than a ribeye steak? What makes it not OK?

It is much higher in fat, and much lower in protein than meat. It also contains pulverized bone, nerve tissue and more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat This puree includes bone, bone marrow, skin, nerves, blood vessels, and the scraps of meat remaining on the bones. The resulting product is a blend primarily consisting of tissues not generally considered meat along with a much smaller amou…

I don't think that's what this is. In fact, the particular product in question is leaner than ground beef, and added to ground beef to get it qualified as "lean". If it's not in the posted article, it's in the linked article (which I cited in my original comment).

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#32

Post by darkpuma »

tedunangst wrote: post #6
tptacek wrote: post #3

Why is this supposed to upset me? If we're going to keep eating animals (and that sure is my plan), we shouldn't give ourselves the luxury of getting squicked out over using the whole animal. If you're picky about what's in your ground beef, find a butcher you trust, or grind your own.

But what about meat glue???

Seems fine if it's labeled, but seems borderline fraudulent if it's not.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#34

Post by sp332 »

Meekro wrote: post #14

The "pink slime" story is mostly fake news. ABC News coined the term, and later paid $177 million to settle a lawsuit over it. It was the largest defamation settlement in the history of the United States. The story took on a life of its own, though. This image[1] became synonymous with "pink slime" (and still appears in a Google image search for the term) even though nobody knows where the image came from. Didn't sto…

I was super disappointed with Jamie Oliver's protest video against pink slime. He threw animal bits into a blender or something, and then put the result into a washing machine with a bunch of ammonia. I like the guy in general but this was awful.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#35

Post by leetcrew »

newnewpdro wrote: post #13

PSA: your grocery store butcher will grind up a steak of your choosing for you at no cost, you only need to ask. I didn't know people bought pre-ground beef until moving out of my parents' home. Growing up, whenever we went shopping, my mother would start at the meat department, pick out a cheap steak, and ask the butcher to grind it up. We'd return for it later before heading to the cashier. I thought this was the s…

no, you just have parents that care about food.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#36

Post by Pharmakon »

zdragnar wrote: post #31
Pharmakon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is much higher in fat, and much lower in protein than meat. It also contains pulverized bone, nerve tissue and more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat This puree includes bone, bone marrow, skin, nerves, blood vessels, and the scraps of meat remaining on the bones. The resulting product is a blend primarily consisting of tissues not generally considered meat along with a much smaller amou…

I don't think that's what this is. In fact, the particular product in question is leaner than ground beef, and added to ground beef to get it qualified as "lean". If it's not in the posted article, it's in the linked article (which I cited in my original comment).

As I said, A lot of the time the stuff is centrifuged to remove fat, in which case it’s used as filler.

It’s the same product, it’s just processed more, but it’s taken off the carcass the same way, and you still get to enjoy that lovely spinal cord. Colloquially the full fat product is “white slime” and the centrifuged and ammoniated product is “pink slime”.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#37

Post by zdragnar »

Pharmakon wrote: post #21
StillBored wrote: post #18

Are these articles a bit misleading about the "trimmings"? My understanding is that a large part of the controversy is because its not little pieces of "meat" its basically the garbage, tendons, pieces of skin, bits of bone, etc. Sure some of it has meat attached, but the difficulty separating the meat bits from the rest is what requires the intensive liquefaction process. The fact that it happens to liquefy some of…

Generally speaking when everything has been taken off the carcass, including parts used for animal feed, the remains are blasted by high pressure water. The resulting tissue, much of it membranes and other fascia are then collected and processed. It is as you say, not really meat, it’s mostly a collagen slurry. In the cases of turkey and chicken the term used is “mechanically separated.” You can find that term on any…

This isn't about mechanically separated chicken or turkey, it's about "Lean finely textured beef (LFTB)", which is actually leaner than the ground meat that it gets mixed in with.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#38

Post by stevebmark »

This makes me want to eat pink slime more, sounds like it's just entirely healthy rendered fat that ignorant Americans think is unhealthy so they remove it from the cuts, losing flavor and nutrients. I didn't realize "pink slime" was the discarded healthier, flavorful cuts of meat.

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#39

Post by jdietrich »

tptacek wrote: post #3

Why is this supposed to upset me? If we're going to keep eating animals (and that sure is my plan), we shouldn't give ourselves the luxury of getting squicked out over using the whole animal. If you're picky about what's in your ground beef, find a butcher you trust, or grind your own.

>Why is this supposed to upset me?

The factor that dominates our conversations about food - social class. We have a set of reflexive attitudes about food that are largely uncorrelated with health, nutrition or the environment, but are strongly correlated with the social class of who eats what.

Advanced meat recovery is the ultimate in nose-to-tail eating, allowing us to make use of almost every gram of edible meat on a carcass. If we're going to keep eating meat, we should celebrate advanced meat recovery in the same way that foodies celebrate unfashionable cuts or offal meat. We don't, because recovered meat is cheap and therefore has negative signalling value. The kind of people who buy grass-fed organic beef would never dream of knowingly eating "pink slime" or mechanically separated chicken, despite the obvious environmental and animal welfare case for eating perfectly good meat that would otherwise go to waste.

Lean finely textured beef is no less nutritious than any other kind of lean beef, because it is lean beef. There are possibly legitimate safety concerns about the use of ammonium hydroxide in the processing of lean finely textured beef, but it's widely used elsewhere in the US food industry and readily substituted by citric acid in this application. If you're concerned about health, then argue about ammonium hydroxide, not about modern techniques to get more meat from every carcass.

(Full disclosure: I am a vegetarian for environmental reasons)

Re: What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef"

#40

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

tptacek wrote: post #3

Why is this supposed to upset me? If we're going to keep eating animals (and that sure is my plan), we shouldn't give ourselves the luxury of getting squicked out over using the whole animal. If you're picky about what's in your ground beef, find a butcher you trust, or grind your own.

Because I depend on the USDA to ensure product safety and transparency.

If anyone wants to buy pink slime, go for it, but I should at least be able to know what I'm buying. This is fraud, and it's aided by the government.

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