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“Pink slime.” The name itself is enough to cause a stomachache. But if you eat meat—and you most likely do—then you’ve almost certainly eaten pink slime, too. According to ABC News, pink slime, or “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB) refers to “waste trimmings” cooked at low heat, separated by a centrifuge and “sprayed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria.” Are you hungry yet? Dig in, because pink slime is an additive in roughly 70% of all American supermarket ground beef.
Food preservation has existed for thousands of years in the form of methods such as pickling and salting. Defenders of pink slime would argue that ammonia-treated beef belongs in the same benign category. It’s just the wave of the future, after all. Rick Perry, accompanied by several other governors, recently took a tour of a Beef Products Inc. plant and donned a bright yellow t-shirt with an unforgettable slogan: “Dude, it’s beef!”
Governor Perry is half right—pink slime was beef at one point, but after the ammonium hydroxide process, the most generous possible description for the substance is “meat substitute.” Recently, several fast food chains and supermarkets have come forth with a promise to ban meat products that contain LFTB. In the frenzy following the recent media coverage of pink slime, some products now specify that they do not contain pink slime. However, the vast majority of ground beef containing the waste trimmings goes unlabeled as such. Ammonium hydroxide gas is considered a “processing aid,” according to Food Safety News—something that aids food production, but does not merit inclusion on the list of ingredients (even when it’s a component of one of the main ingredients, as is the case here!)
Proponents of pink slime argue that the filler is not only safe to consume, but also an economic necessity: less expensive meat is more accessible to the general public, and if companies like Beef Products Inc. did not use cow scraps in their products, tons and tons of meat product would go to waste. However, the reality is so simple that the argument feels tired: this cheap “beef” is a short-term solution that causes long-term problems. Pink slime is symptomatic of the bigger issue that is American factory farming and the way it depletes the earth of biodiversity and natural resources, and is a breeding ground for disease and pollution.
Pink slime is outlawed in Canada and the UK, but it seems that Americans either don’t know about it or are willing to ingest it because it’s much cheaper than organic, grass-fed beef, even when such a choice can lead to major health repercussions. According to The Gothamist, ammonium hydroxide isn’t the only chemical in most supermarket meats—chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite and hypobromous acid are also additives found in these products.
There are also quite a few sanitation problems associated with processing the pink slime. First of all, the pink slime process uses the parts of the cow that are closest to the hide, which are often contaminated with E. coli, salmonella, and/or other bacteria from exposure to feces. This contamination is especially dangerous in a factory farming environment, where cows quite literally stand around in shit. Up until now, this meat has usually been rendered for use in dog food—it’s not designed for human consumption. After the ammonia treatment, Beef Products Inc. was so sure of the effectiveness of the process that it neglected to test for contamination. Yet much of the pink slime produced was found to contain E. coli and salmonella even after the chemical bath!
This is horrifying. This stuff sounds like a seventh-grade science project gone wrong, and it’s being upheld as “nutritious,” “lean,” and even “resourceful.” I’ll also clarify that though you may be ingesting pink slime, it’s not really your fault at all. This is another prime example of our nation’s obsession with the cheapest possible product, whether it’s technology, clothing or the substances we put in our bodies.
So, is an anti-slime stance all that radical? I’d say no. Still, on online forums, some commenters who have advocated on behalf of a reduced-meat or vegetarian diet have been slammed for sounding bourgeois and naïve, since apparently not everyone can afford such a diet. However, as the price of meat steadily climbs and health care becomes unavailable for many Americans, eating cheap meat products no longer seems worth it—it’s a danger the price tag on ground beef doesn’t take into account. At the end of the day, certain vegetarian staples like rice and beans will always be among the cheapest and most nourishing products in the aisles.
Realistically, my suggestion is this: eat a mostly vegetarian diet punctuated by small amounts of grass-fed meat products. For those who still find this classist, I would urge you to think of meat and clothing in the same way. Buy higher-quality, slightly more expensive products infrequently instead of low-quality, cheap products on a regular basis. In the end, the investment will probably save you money; in the case of meat, it will almost certainly be healthier.
Those who argue on behalf of pink slime—which they would prefer to call LFTB—harken back to a time when it was noble to consume or otherwise use every part of the animal after it had been killed. I do not advocate wastefulness, but the only reason some consumers don’t take issue with consuming pink slime is because many Americans are accustomed to eating beef at least once or twice a day. This kind of consumption is not sustainable, but if Americans want cheap meat, they will be deluded into thinking that the production and consumption of meat scraps is part of the American tradition of resourcefulness.
We need to reduce the amount of meat we eat. Vegetarianism isn’t even necessary if we can manage to eat beef only once or twice a week. Until then, we will continue to deplete natural resources in the name of one-dollar hamburgers. Is it worth it? •
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You state, “Yet much of the pink slime produced was found to contain E. coli and salmonella even after the chemical bath!”
Where did you get your information for this article, and did you do ANY research prior to publishing the article?
The New York Times even stated, “The contamination of the meat was discovered by the company in its plant before the beef was shipped. No meat produced by Beef Products Inc. has been linked to any illnesses or outbreaks.”
This was following the Michael Moss editorial article the week prior. It would seem you have been a victim of hysteria. I hope in the future you plan on performing research, as you were instructed to do so in school, prior to publishing false accusations.
One question, you state organic/farm fresh produce is the way to go, so why has the life-expectancy for humans increased over the centuries instead of declined. What was the life-expectancy in the 1400’s when nearly all food was “farm fresh”?
“Except that despite B.P.I.’s claim that the ammonia treatment killed E. coli and salmonella, and despite the U.S.D.A.’s support for this process, those pathogens have been found in B.P.I. meat. Oops.” – Excerpted from Mark Bittman’s article entitled “The Pink Menace.” It can be found here: http://nyti.ms/HItlFq
Mr. Terry, Ms. Holmes was right in what she wrote. She did not claim that the chemically treated meat was shipped out, but it is certainly true that B.P.I.’s product was still contaminated with e.coli despite receiving the ammonia treatment.
To answer your question about life-expectancy, much of human kind’s increased longevity can be directly attributed to advances in medicine, not the factory farming of food. People may be living longer, but diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are on the rise in every society due to the industrialization of food. It isn’t necessarily about how long one is living—the quality of life is important, too. You can live a decent amount of time with diabetes, but is that really an ideal situation to be in?
I am quite certain that if our society’s eating habits were the same as people “in the 1400’s” (coupled with our current knowledge of medical science), people would be living not only longer but much better lives than they are today.
Lean Finely Textured Beef is a high quality, lean, 100% beef product. The family owned and operated company that produces it has a food safety record that is above reproach. What we have all been exposed to with this topic is a classic example of media sensationalism aimed at ratings rather than facts. Let’s all be good consumers and educate ourselves before we jump on the ban wagon. There are a plenty of credible sources out there we can use to make our own decisions. A well informed consumer has the tools to, and will, make good decisions. And remember “A lie will makes it half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get it’s pants on”.
Mr. Cother, the facts are out there and I have educated myself and made my own decision. I encourage you to eat as much ground beef as you’d like — your choice! I, however, choose not to eat animal products for a variety of reasons, and the promise of chemically treated meat scraps doesn’t exactly entice me to do so ever again. My choice, not yours. Writing this article in the hopes of informing more people about pink slime is a bandwagon I’m willing to jump on, because it’s something I find repulsive AND it’s rooted in fact.
Mr. Terry, you seem to believe that what we eat is the one and only factor that affects human life expectancy. Eek.