'Pink slime' beef production put on hold

 

A US company that makes a beef product often referred to as "pink slime" is suspending production at three of four plants amid concern about the product.

Beef Products Inc said it hopes business will return once fears about the product die down.

Officially known as "lean, finely textured beef", so-called "pink slime" is made from left-over cuts and is up to 97% beef, a spokesman said.

US schools have been allowed to stop serving the food at mealtimes.

"We feel like when people can start to understand the truth and reality then our business will come back," Beef Products spokesman Chris Letch said.

Federal regulators say the beef ingredient meets food safety standards, but critics say the food is unappetising and possibly unsafe.

The beef is heated and spun in a centrifuge to separate the meat from the fat, before the final product is treated with a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas to kill any bacteria.

Earlier this month a social media campaign against the use of the food was followed by an announcement by the US agriculture department that schools would be allowed to choose alternative beef supplies.

Some school districts and retailers have already chosen to stop using it.

The three Beef Products Inc plants being wound down are located in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa. Together they produce about 900,000lb (408,000kg) of the beef product per day, the company says.

About 200 employees at each location will receive their full salary and benefits for 60 days while production is suspended, the company said.

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Safeway to Stop Selling ‘Pink Slime’ Textured Beef

 

Safeway, America’s second largest supermarket chain, has announced it will no longer sell what the meat industry calls “lean finely textured beef” and the public has come to call “pink slime.”

Safeway says in a statement “considerable consumer concern” led to its decision even though the chain believes its beef with the controversial filler in it is safe

“Safeway is committed to providing our customers with the highest-quality products,” the company said in a statement. “While the USDA and food industry experts agree that lean finely textured beef is safe and wholesome, recent news stories have caused considerable consumer concern about this product.  Safeway will no longer purchase ground beef containing lean finely textured beef.”

Makers of “lean finely textured beef” and the USDA  say that it is not an additive and need not be labeled, and is safe to eat. But critics, including former USDA scientists, contend the ammonia treated “pink slime” — made from low quality scraps once used for dog food and cooking oil — is less nutritious than pure ground beef.

“It’s not fresh ground beef. It’s a cheap substitute being added in,” microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein said.

Seventy percent of all store bought ground beef contained “pink slime,” but since ABC News exposed its widespread use many grocery stores have told shoppers their meat counters are free of the mixture.

The USDA announced last week that it will disclose to school districts which of its suppliers use pink slime so administrators can decide whether to purchase it.

Safeway has 1400 stores coast to coast,  second only to Kroger. The chain now joins Publix, HEB, Whole Foods and Costco promising their ground beef is additive free.

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American Meat Institute: "Pink Slime" Is "Safe, Wholesome And Nutritious"

Do your hamburgers contain ammonium-hydroxide treated meat?

On Wednesday, we posted on the USDA's purchase of 7 million pounds of ammonium hydroxide-treated beef previously rejected by fast food companies. The story immediately gained interest among our readers. The treated beef, which former USDA scientist Gerald Zirnstein dubbed "Pink Slime," is made of otherwise unusable bits and pieces of beef that are particularly prone to bacterial infection. The treatment was designed to sterilize it.

The problem: it may not work.

However, the American Meat Institute, a lobbying organization that represents 95 percent of the beef industry, responded to the concerns and their president claims that the product—which they call "boneless lean beef trimmings"—is "safe, wholesome and nutritious."

This stuff isn't just in school lunches: the pink slime/BLBT/whatever you want to call it, is part of about 70 percent of the ground beef the rigor of the USDA evaluation of the treatment process. When the product went through the approval process at USDA, an undersecretary of agriculture said "it’s pink, therefore it’s meat." The product's swift approval made hundreds of millions of dollars for the companies that produced it. sold in American supermarkets. This led that same former USDA scientist to claim that he only eats hamburger he grinds himself. There have also been some questions about

The USDA has limited the use of BLBT to 15 percent of any ground beef (an odd choice for a safe and wholesome product) but there is no requirement that products containing BLBT be labeled as such.

The American Meat Institute, in its statement, minimized the usage of Ammonium Hydroxide, claiming it is just one possible process for making BLBT and emphasizing that the resulting product is 100 percent beef.

 According to AMI: 

"One process uses food grade ammonium hydroxide gas, something commonly used in the production of many foods, to destroy bacteria. Whatever process is used, it is all done under the watchful eye of USDA inspectors and according to strict federal rules...The fact is, BLBT is beef. The beef trimmings that are used to make BLBT are absolutely edible." They also claim that "BLBT is a sustainable product because it recovers lean meat that would otherwise be wasted. The beef industry is proud to efficiently produce as much lean meat as possible from the cattle we raise."

It's worth noting that ammonium hydroxide is nothing but household ammonium: the stuff you use to clean your floors. Whether it's officially labeled "food grade" or not may not make much of a difference to consumers when evaluating this product.

We sent Rob Levitt, butcher and owner of The Butcher & Larder, AMI's complete statement to see what he thought about the process. He responded immediately and decisively.

"I think the pink stuff is gross," said Levitt, "and I think the AMI's defense of its use is ridiculous. This isn't the only problem we face, though. I opened The Butcher & Larder to be a place where people could shop and feel good about knowing the origin of their food. It is a stretch, but if parents are concerned about what their children are eating, they should try to control it. Vote with your dollar. I know it is hard for some families to pack a lunch, but if ammoniated meat product is the alternative, then voices must be raised.

"Let's see if the folks at the AMI would like to do shots of 'food grade ammonium hydroxide gas.' Are they happy to feed their children chemicals? How about instead of trying to meet the global demand for lean beef, we teach people to eat less beef, but be picky about what they are eating. With quality beef, a little goes a long way."

A request to the AMI for photos of the treated meat or of the treatment process was unanswered at the time of publication.

ALSO SEE;

http://todaysdailypoop.blogspot.com/2012/03/pink-slime-meat-rejected-by-mcdonalds.html

AND

http://todaysdailypoop.blogspot.com/search?q=pink+slime

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"Pink Slime" Meat Rejected By McDonalds, Bought For School Lunches

 

Last month, McDonalds announced it would no longer buy meat treated with ammonium hydroxide. This meat, often referred to as "Pink slime" because of its sickly appearance, was made up of scraps and trimmings that, absent chemical treatment, would have been rejected. In an attempt to save money, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants had been reincorporating those scraps back into food, after treating them with chemicals. Unfortunately, the slime had very high rates of infection with food-bourne illnesses. After a public outcry, McDonald's stopped using it. So, what to do with all of that perfectly terrible meat? Sell it to the government.

Despite the constant news coverage and hand-wringing about fast food restaurants in schools and childhood obesity, the national school lunch program still must have pretty low standards. The program has purchased 7 million pounds of the pink slime to serve in schools across the nation. Even better, this comes less than six weeks after the release of new school lunch guidelines designed to make foods healthier and safer. As it turns out, the USDA has been buying this stuff for years, and there's no indication they are going to stop.

Microbiologist Carl Custer, speaking to The Daily, referred to the product as "Soylent Pink," arguing that it had little to no nutritional value. Other scientists told The Daily that they were pressured to approve the produce with minimal safety evaluations, which is particularly problematic given the high incidence of Salmonella, E. Coli and other contaminants present in the treated meat byproduct.

We understand the importance of keeping costs down in school lunch programs, but this is an example of the federal government working against itself. If McDonalds and Taco Bell (hardly paragons of food safety) don't think this stuff is clean enough to eat, the federal government shouldn't be buying it - and they should dispose of what they have bought, rather than serving it to the nation's poorest kids.

ALSO SEE ;

http://todaysdailypoop.blogspot.com/search?q=pink+slime

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