What ABC called "pink slime," USDA now says can be labeled "ground beef" • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by jdietrich » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

notyourday wrote: post #233

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…

> 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. Not at all. The fact that this is even being brought up in the argument illustrates how much the industry needs to be regulated. I had an organic burrito on Thursday because my wife in our old age is obsessed at buying only organic…

Where did the wheat come from? What chemicals and microbes were in the soil and water that the wheat grew in? What substances have been intentionally added to the soil and water? What are the genetic traits of that wheat and how have they been altered? What was added or removed from the wheat when it was processed into flour? What contamination might have happened during the journey from field to plate? How was the chemical composition of the wheat affected by the specific processes used during the production of the tortilla?

Each of those questions has a long, complicated and potentially uncertain answer. At any stage in that process, that plain and simple flour could become seriously toxic. The same applies to every ingredient in the burrito, with a far longer list of questions for meat and dairy products.

"Simple" is rarely simple and "natural" is often far from safe. Organic vegetables are frequently severely contaminated with dangerous bacteria due to inappropriate processing of organic fertiliser or contaminated groundwater. Some aquifers have dangerously high levels of naturally occurring arsenic, rendering the surrounding land unsuitable for many types of agriculture. A lot of common cooking and handling processes can produce toxic chemicals or drastically increase the risk of bacterial contamination. There are a million different ways for food production to go badly wrong.

If you spent every waking moment of the next five years trying to understand precisely what went into that grocery store burrito, you'd still come up short. The simplest of ingredients is still immensely complex. Our food chain is built on trust; trust in the farmer, trust in the distributor, trust in the manufacturer, trust in the retailer. That chain of trust is held together by regulation. You as a consumer are almost entirely powerless, because you don't have the means to validate the claims being made by anyone in that chain. That's an uncomfortable thought, but it's true and it's why evidence-based regulation and effective enforcement are so vital.

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

#282

Post by jakobegger » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

Grue3 wrote: post #217

This seems like optimal usage of resources, reusing the unneeded parts of the dead animal to create something edible. This should be celebrated, and it's something humanity has done for centuries.

And its totally fine if people use the fatty trimmings to make sausage, like we've been doing for centuries.

It's not okay if we process the fatty trimmings, heat them, centrifuge them, and then add them to ground beef to lower the fat content to make it look like the product was made from better bits of the animal.

Using more of the animal is a good thing, but misleading customers is not the way to do that.

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

#283

Post by adrr » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

KAMSPioneer wrote: post #277

GordonS wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's been disinfected Woah... that seems like a huge deal to me

It's considered extremely safe. The disinfectant used is either citric acid or ammonia (and the remaining ammonia residue is not enough to be harmful to humans). It does sound concerning, but it generally is not.

Safety of the disinfectant isn't the issue. It's the care of the food in the process. Ground beef processing needs to be handled with care to prevent it from being contaminated with feces to prevent Ecoli H157 outbreaks. I'd rather my food receive greater care in handling and preventing fecal contamination then just blanket disinfecting it.

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

#284

Post by Spivak » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #223

arcticfox wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it mean exactly to be ground? When I look at their product, it looks like it's come out of a meat grinder to me. I can show you some incredible fake and inedible food that looks just like the real thing. Appearance isn't really a good measure for what something is. As for what it means to grind: "To reduce to smaller pieces by crushing with lateral motion." I don't think the process meets any reasonable d…

So the argument here is that it's mislabeled because it wasn't crushed with a lateral motion? And that's misleading to customers?

I think the argument is more that consumers have a very specific idea about what constitutes ground beef: a few specific cuts of beef put through a meat grinder. Full stop.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using the whole cow so to speak -- people love chicken nuggets and hot dogs -- but you should at least be upfront about the difference. If I tried to pass off a tub of 'pink slime' as ground beef in a kitchen I would would get thrown out.

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

#285

Post by nate_meurer » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

dbt00 wrote: post #256

nate_meurer wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, I don't know if they're using ammonia gas on the beef trimmings, but assuming that they are, then you've managed to conflate two different chemicals No, they are the same chemical for the purposes of this discussion. Any form of ammonia you eat -- whether ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium sulfate in bread, or ammonia residues in meat -- will be found as ammonium hydroxide in your blood. It's the same stuff. A…

Can you tell me what the affect of dietary ammonia are on folks suffering from IBS/IBD? Food spends time in your body before it makes it to your bloodstream. (I’ve got a kid that already avoids hard cheeses because it upsets him and bread for celiac reasons, so...).

Even at the highest levels allowed by the FDA, dietary ammonia is unlikely to have any noticeable effect. The tens of milligrams of ammonia your child would get from a large serving of cheese is insignificant compared to the ammonia produced by his own gut flora. And it's truly harmless compared to the the toxins he gets from an intestinal microbial overgrowth (such as a pylori infection) which may very well be the most prominent cause of intestinal disorders.

Even at higher levels than those allowed in food, I've seen no evidence that ammonia has any intraluminal effects beyond smooth muscle hypertonia. So even if your child somehow ingested more significant amounts of ammonia, for example from cleaning products, the worst symptoms will be some cramping. Note that I'm not talking about ingestion of concentrated ammonia, which is a corrosive hazard.

Think of it this way: if your child really was affected by dietary ammonia, you'd have to avoid a lot more than hard cheese. Foods containing more ammonia than pink slime include nearly all cheeses, cured meats, peanut butter, onions, mayonnaise, and others. If ammonia really was a problem then we'd all be pretty screwed.

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

#286

Post by KAMSPioneer » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #283

KAMSPioneer wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's considered extremely safe. The disinfectant used is either citric acid or ammonia (and the remaining ammonia residue is not enough to be harmful to humans). It does sound concerning, but it generally is not.

Safety of the disinfectant isn't the issue. It's the care of the food in the process. Ground beef processing needs to be handled with care to prevent it from being contaminated with feces to prevent Ecoli H157 outbreaks. I'd rather my food receive greater care in handling and preventing fecal contamination then just blanket disinfecting it.

I understand the concern wrt E. Coli (I assume you were referring to O157:H7 -- the number after the O refers to the antigen produced by the lipopolysaccharide layer, and H refers to the flaggelar antigen, so H157 is likely an error). Also, the USDA has categorized other E. Coli stains as adulterants: O26, O131, O145, O45, O111, O121.

Also, Salmonella has a tendency to grow in ground production areas and is a concern as well. The fact of the matter is, ammonia disinfection is a tool to combat these threats, and is useful even in instances where proper food handling practices are observed. After all, if ground beef is prepared correctly by the consumer (i.e. cooked to 160F, not cross-contaminated), then it's a moot point anyway. But we still do all of this as a precaution to protect people. And because it's the law.

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

#287

Post by adrr » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #183

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 recently saw that they now offer ground beef with less fat at our local supermarket. I assumed that they just put less of the fatty bits inside. Now, I don't live in the US, and I don't know what regulations in Europe say about ground beef, but it does make me hesitate: I absolutely wouldn't have bought the meat if I knew they added pink slime to it to make it less fatty. I'd just buy the fatty ground beef instead.…

Europe doesn’t allow pink slime. Any meat product requiring it to be disinfected because of potential fecal contamination will not fly in EU.

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

#288

Post by nate_meurer » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #231

nate_meurer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some foods? You mean, like, literally all digestible proteins? > but constant higher levels can cause illness as it overwhelms the body. Note that this has nothing to do with the tiny residual levels of ammonia in bread, cheese (both cheap and expensive), and meat products of all kinds. Your body produces and excretes an order of magnitude more ammonia than what you eat directly from food, and will easily do far more…

The bacteria in your body produce waste ammonia, hydrogen, methaine. Your body using the detoxication channels available to remove them. If the body is unable to you get sick. Throwing in more ammonia will cause more stress on these pathways. Bodies can only handle so much we try to counteract these with things to detoxify like rest, exercise, other foods, etc. Eat pink slime through your 20s might be okay the older…

I don't mean to insult you, so let me apologize if this sounds mean, but I can tell you're completely unfamiliar with basic human physiology. What you're saying makes no sense.

Ammonia is your body's way of getting rid of nitrogen, which comes from dietary protein. In general, an adult's body must dispose of as much nitrogen as they consume. This makes sense if you think about it, because humans don't grow forever. You may gain or lose lean mass for periods of time, but in general, nitrogen excretion equals nitrogen intake. The more protein you eat, the more ammonia your body makes, and your body is designed to efficiently process and eliminate large amounts of ammonia, mostly via conversion to urea and renal filtering.

So think about this logically for a moment. Think about how much protein you eat every day. In effect, all of the nitrogen in that protein (an equal amount of nitrogen, rather) is converted to ammonia inside your body. You'll see exactly how much whenever you have your blood tested, in your UUN (Urine Urea Nitrogen) number. My last UUN was about 20 g/day. Healthy athletes commonly excrete up to 40 or 50 grams of nitrogen per day, which means their bodies can safely produce upward of 50 grams of ammonia every day (molar mass ratio of nitrogen to ammonia is about 0.82).

This is perfectly normal and sustainable for your entire life. Renal efficiency declines slowly after middle age, but reasonably high-protein diets are harmless and in many ways beneficial even for elderly people.

Does this make sense? You're worried about eating, say, a hundred milligrams of extra ammonia in your food, while your body is naturally and safely producing hundreds of times more than that every day. Do you see how silly that sounds?

EDIT:

As I pointed out in another comment, I'm a vegetarian, and I reflexively consider LFTB to be approximately equivalent to roadkill. I think there are legitimate risks in mislabeling LFTB, but the trace ammonia content is not one of them.

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

#289

Post by newnewpdro » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

Latty wrote: post #209

leetcrew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, you just have parents that care about food.

And are wealthy enough to make this choice. I can't speak for the US, so maybe it is different, but here in the UK even the cheapest steak will set you back far more per kilo than minced beef.

Wealthy is not how I'd describe my parents; a construction worker with a stay at home housewife and three kids.

There are often steaks for sale on the refrigerated shelves adjacent to the butcher counter/case. Maybe that's not so common in the UK? The supermarkets here regularly have meat wrapped in clear plastic and carrying bright orange stickers on clearance, it's what happens to the case-resident stuff when new stock arrives.

My mother would familiarize herself with the schedule of deliveries at the stores she frequented. She knew when and where she could get the freshest stuff for special occasions, as well as when things went on sale to make room for the new meat, keeping our freeezer full of staples.

I don't think it requires wealth so much as it requires some care and effort. These are the kinds of duties a traditional housewife would take on, but I don't personally find it particularly difficult to chat up the butcher and do more or less the same thing as a bachelor.

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

#290

Post by kbutler » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #97

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…

> 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. I'd say this "beef" is fake meat -- whether some court agrees or not (that depends on who has the best lawyers and deeper pockets, not on who has the best food). I'd be OK with companies being allowed to sell all…

Agreed - it wasn't produced by "grinding beef" so it is not "ground beef". Processed, recovered, etc. would be fine. "Lean, Finely Textured Beef" was fine.

I wouldn't call "almonds steeped in water and filtered with vitamins added" "almond milk" either.