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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"

#171

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

wutbrodo wrote: post #143
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole issue here isn’t the outside of the meat. The outside is supposed to have bacteria, and be cooked off. It’s that re-shaped meat is done with meat product that is made up of a lot of outside surface (the part that has all the bacteria) now being smashed to the inside of the product where it won’t get hot enough to kill. The inside of beef is quite clean, that’s why it’s safe to eat rare. The inside of reshap…

I'd be very surprised at someone knowing that beef doesn't need to be cooked internally to as high a temperature _without_ knowing that this isn't true of ground beef. I'm not much of a cook, and have even less exposure to Western cooking, and that's one of the basics you come across when you first started handling meat.

Yes, I agree it’s common knowledge that steak and burger have different cooking requirements.

The issue is if you THINK you have a nice solid real steak with clean insides, but ACTUALLY have a few steak pieces glued together with ground meat purée.

You can’t tell by looking at it. Probably doesn’t taste any different. And the customer is never informed.

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

#172

Post by chadcmulligan »

supportlocal4h wrote: post #61

For those who don't have a personal butcher, you might be interested to know... Many state and county fairs include a livestock show. Often the exhibited animals are auctioned off at the end of the show. The animals are raised and exhibited by youth (4H, FFA, etc). The proceeds go to the (child) owner of the animal. At our county fair, bidding starts at about $3/# on the hoof. They generally weigh between 1100# and 1…

When I was young my parents used to buy a side of beef and freeze it, I imagine you can still do this. A side of beef is what it says - the left or right side of the animal, cut up and ready for freezing. Used to be the cheapest way to buy meat. That was in the days of beef for every night time meal, and corned beef sandwiches for lunch, sausages for breakfast :-).

The bones used to be soaked for hours to get all the goodness out of them and make stock. I dont know if this is much different from the reclaimed meat - apart from the ammonia I suppose. Even now I make stock regularly and get all the yummy left over bits in the pot.

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

#173

Post by crankylinuxuser »

heyjudy wrote: post #111
HocusLocus wrote: post #73

misfolded proteins be very afraid be very afraid be very afraid

Don't worry, by the time people find out we gave them Mad Cow in 40-50 years, we can stack up all the extra profits in a Caribbean bank and be sipping margaritas with small grains of salt served by hula girls on a whole fleet of yachts.

BTW what is the average time CJD or BSE sets in humans?

Do you have a study to point at that would show some sort of timeframe?

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

#174

Post by greglindahl »

jdietrich wrote: post #131
joe_the_user wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After butchering a carcass, you're left with a lot of fatty trimmings with small amounts of meat attached that are uneconomical to recover by hand. If you gently heat the fat trimmings and spin them in a centrifuge, you cleanly separate the lean meat from the fat. That process weakens the cell walls of the muscle fibres, which increases the risk of bacterial growth; to kill the bacteria, ammonium hydroxide gas is use…

>That's a fine sell. Now sell me on, "this is so OK that we should have a statutory right not to ever mention this fact. Food production is really, really complex. If an organic burrito was labelled with every process involved in its production, it would come with a label the size of a telephone directory. Over-labelling is just as problematic as under-labelling, as we have seen with Prop 65; adding more words to a l…

"pink slime" is shorter than "ground beef" by one letter, so it's kinda hard to see using it as "over-labeling".

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

#176

Post by dang »

joe_the_user wrote: post #96
dang wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we've changed the URL to that from https://qz.com/1552580/the-us-government-has-redefined-pink-... . Thanks!

I'm sorry, the languaging in this re-linking sounds like so much like industry shilling. "That product is then sterilized with a strong puff of ammonia gas to kill pathogens, as beef trimmings are especially susceptible to contamination." With an elaborate explanation for each "terrible sounding" detail (what is this "puff" exactly, etc). ... except the sum total of the "terrible sounding" stuff is actually distinctl…

If you know of a more informative article we can certainly change the URL again.

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

#178

Post by open-source-ux »

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.

I think of it more in terms of cheap vs more expensive cuts of meat. I think it's important to signal this on the packaging. In the UK, the process being discussed in this thread is labelled 'mechanically recovered meat' (MRM) on food packaging. For food producers, MRM is much cheaper than other meat which is why you'll often find it used in cheap burgers and ready meals. Many consumers might never look at the ingredients or even know what MRM is. For me, it's still important not to subsume the different processes under one label of ground beef because they are not the same.

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

#179

Post by parasubvert »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #166
jdietrich wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nothing in nature produces food by treating in with ammonia! We are the only thing in nature that "produces" food - every other species photosynthesises, hunts or grazes. We're the only species that can cook. Is cooking unnatural? >made only with ingredients or processes endogenous to living organisms without human intervention Where do you draw the line? Is wheat flour "unnatural" because we winnow off the chaff an…

When people complain about non endogenous to nature processed foods, they don't bring up stupid as shit examples. It's a painful conversation, yes, because everyone has a hard time having a dialogue with moronic levels of pedantry. Maybe if you weren't calling cooking unnatural, and rather just talked about the merits of what people were really objecting too, it would be easier to communicate. This isn't Science of C…

You have no idea what you're talking about, and have the audacity to refer to the parent poster as shit examples? Your response is a disgrace to HN posting standards.

How isn't this science of cooking? Ammonia was a primary leavening agent for baked goods for centuries. Baking soda mostly replaced it but some old recipes still call for it. It's also commonly found in cheeses like Brie. It's in abundance in some fish considered a delicacy in Korea.

IOW, it's been a thing for a long time. You are arbitrarily placing a line between "cooking" and "industrial process" out of ignorance and bias.

When I seek a Maillard reaction in my food (baking bread, searing meat) and potentially generate acrylamide (a carcinogen), how is that exogenously induced chemical process, somehow "better" from another one like an ammonia puff that is intended to improve food quality?

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

#180

Post by RealityVoid »

greglindahl wrote: post #174
jdietrich wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's a fine sell. Now sell me on, "this is so OK that we should have a statutory right not to ever mention this fact. Food production is really, really complex. If an organic burrito was labelled with every process involved in its production, it would come with a label the size of a telephone directory. Over-labelling is just as problematic as under-labelling, as we have seen with Prop 65; adding more words to a l…

"pink slime" is shorter than "ground beef" by one letter, so it's kinda hard to see using it as "over-labeling".

But he is of the opinion that whether something is or is not "pink slime" is irrelevant to the safety of the product. Ergo, it is just noise.
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