Attack of the Pink Slime!

[scotpens]

Okay, so we’ve probably all heard about it by now — the processed beef product called “lean finely textured beef” by its manufacturers, and “pink slime” by its detractors. So, is the stuff really that bad? Or is this just another example of fearmongering and hysteria trumping fact and common sense?

Link

(I suggest reading the opinion piece and a sampling of the comments. Including my own, of course. )

 

[The Master of Tarquin Hill]

It was dog food until it became human food.

Completely unrelated, I used to have a route that took me past a rendering plant on a daily basis. And when I say rendering plant I mean meat products from pink slime all the way down to roadkill (you know, deers and stuff).

I do not know how to adequately express that smell.

 

[Amaris]

It's been around for decades, and it's why you can buy a hamburger for $1.

 

[Trekker4747]

I've been dealing with this issue at work a lot and it's absolutely absurd.

The stuff they're calling "pink slime" is still 100% beef.

Here's the deal, imagine you have large chunk of meat with a layer of fat on it you want to trim off. So you take a knife and start running it along the fat to cut it off, occasionally you may go a bit deep and skim off some lean -meat- and not just fat. Or some of the regular trimmings will just have nonrecoverable meat mixed in it.

The process for maxing "Lean Finely Textured Meat" takes these fat trimmings and puts them through a process where the fat is exposed to warm temperatures, spun in a centrifuge, where the denser lean beef separates from the fat. (The process is similar to how cream is separated to make butter.)

The recovered beef is then exposed to ammonia gas in order to kill off any bacteria that may have formed when the beef was held in the food danger zone. Ammonia is a mostly harmless substance to mammals that is easily processed by the body and excreted through the urine, no measurable amounts of ammonia make it into the final product.

The resulting product comes out of this process looking mostly like fine-ground hamburger (the "pink slime" shown in news clips is actually ground chicken or turkey!) and it's lean content is close to 100%. This is added to traditional beef trimmings in order to bring up the volume and to bring up the lean content.

Now, depending on the manufacturer of the hamburger the content of LFTB can be pretty much anything but the more of it there is will likely bring down the quality of the meat. Most of the stuff you buy in the store is likely to be in the teens of percentage.

It's important to remember that it's 100% beef there's nothing to it that's to be afraid of. It's meat. It's not a "filler" since it's actual beef. Filler is stuff like bread crumbs and actual sawdust some less reputable companies may add to meat in order to bring up the weight but it must be called "filler."

It's important to remember that ammonia is a natural chemical that's even in your body right now and less than trace amounts make it into the final product.

LTB is a process that's been used for nearly 20 years now and the media hysteria over it has caused an impact on jobs as the over-reaction by the industry is causing factories to have slow or stop production.

There is literally nothing to be worried about and Jamie Oliver and the media has been making a huge production out of nothing. It's meat. It's 100% meat. It's nothing to be scared or squicked out about.

The process recovers meat that'd otherwise be garbage which is beneficial to the consumer as it means raw materials go further, without this process more animals would need to be slaughtered or more quality cuts need to be used for production of ground beef which will mean the already high prices of hamburger will only go up more.

It's amazing to me with all the real, terrible, things going on in this world by companies in the production of goods and services (I'm looking at your Apple and Foxconn) that this is the thing that caused a media and public backlash that caused an entire industry to change inside of a month.

It's already having an impact on my department as this past month I've had to throwout a lot of hamburger as my hamburger sales have dropped quite a bit. The destruction of this product has forced me to drop the prices on hamburger and raise the prices on everything else to make-up the difference.

If one is really afraid of this stuff -which you've no reason to be- at your local grocery store find the stuff they actually grind in-store from their production or simply select a roast and have them grind it. The stuff won't contain the LTB since it's a factory-level process.

But, in the end, remember. It's just meat.

 

[Amaris]

^ That about covers it (good post, Trekker).

 

[iguana_tonante]

I'm not "ideologically" against it, and I'm quite sure it's ok (as long as health and safety requirements are met), but still... why I would have this industrially-processed stuff when I can have a real cut of meat?

 

[ByrdMan]

I'm not "ideologically" against it, and I'm quite sure it's ok (as long as health and safety requirements are met), but still... why I would have this industrially-processed stuff when I can have a real cut of meat?

Cost?

 

[iguana_tonante]

In cuisine, cost before quality is too high a cost for me.

 

[iguana_tonante]

No idea what that means.

 

[Squiggy]

Do a barrel roll!

 

[Kemaiku]

I'm not "ideologically" against it, and I'm quite sure it's ok (as long as health and safety requirements are met), but still... why I would have this industrially-processed stuff when I can have a real cut of meat?

Cost?

Probably, but I wonder just how much more it would cost, really.

 

[Holdfast]

As Trekker says, I can't really see any objection to the pink slime in theory. As iguana does, I naturally happen to avoid buying too many products that have it, though my occasional fondness for a fast food hit means I don't avoid it entirely.

But the wider point is the one J Allen and Byrdman point out, which is that it allows meat to be provided at lower cost. Food production is only likely to get more expensive in future, so methods of increasing efficiency like this will have to occur in order that those on lower budgets can get the food types they want. This is especially so since those countries that we in first world countries used to use as inflationary sinkholes (thereby indirectly subsidising the poor in our own countries) are now themselves increasing fuelling the rising costs.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm not "ideologically" against it, and I'm quite sure it's ok (as long as health and safety requirements are met), but still... why I would have this industrially-processed stuff when I can have a real cut of meat?

LTB is meat. And, as I said, in most grocery store cases it's making up around 10% of the hamburger. If you want a "real cut of meat" making up your hamburger select a piece of meat and have the meat shop grind it for you. You'll pay more as the actual cut is going to be higher priced (and you won't get all of it back as some of it will be lost in the grinding process) but, hey, you'll have "a real cut of meat."

Probably, but I wonder just how much more it would cost, really.

Without LFT the cost of hamburger would be expected to go up 10-20%. The process recovers quite a bit of otherwise tossed out meat. Without this process more valued cuts would need to be sacrificed to make the burger, which means more cattle would be needed for slaughter and those valued cuts aren't going to be sacrificed without a penalty.

LFT since it comes out so lean also is very good at bringing up the leanness of hamburger, without it the leaner varieties of hamburger will either disappear or be vastly more expensive as to make it now the high-priced lean cuts will need to be used to produce lean hamburger.

LFT has been used for twenty years. You've had it. You've been having it. Everything you've ate that contains hamburger over the last two decades have had this in it. (Unless you only have bought hamburger made in the store) So you've had this "not real" stuff without any apparent problems in taste or quality.

People are complaining now because, in essence, they're being like a bunch of kids who've tried a new food and are now being told there's broccoli in it. "Yuck! I knew something was wrong with it!"

Yes, schools and some fast-food restaurants were probably using hamburger with a higher percentage of LFT in it which we could probably make arguments about quality and texture on but schools and fast-food restaurants are hardly bastions of fine dining and high-quality food. The higher amount of LFT means cheaper food which means being able to feed a class of 4,000 for $3.00 or selling a cheeseburger for $1.00.

It's still beef. It's still meat, and it's still going to taste like beef and meat. Texture might be "odd" but that's about it.

The hamburger you buy in stores has a low percentage of the stuff and it's been there for 20 years. Don't make me quote Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and say, "Dude, it's beef!"

 

[iguana_tonante]

why I would have this industrially-processed stuff when I can have a real cut of meat?

LTB is meat. And, as I said, in most grocery store cases it's making up around 10% of the hamburger. If you want a "real cut of meat" making up your hamburger select a piece of meat and have the meat shop grind it for you. You'll pay more as the actual cut is going to be higher priced (and you won't get all of it back as some of it will be lost in the grinding process) but, hey, you'll have "a real cut of meat."

In fact, that's what I do. I don't eat burgers too often, so the additional cost is irrelevant to my pockets. I'm not questioning the meatitude of the stuff, I'm questioning the quality and the traceability of origin.

Dude, stop being so angry about it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Dude, stop being so angry about it.

If you had to deal with idiots every. Single. Day. Who turn up their nose and ask about this stuff and roll their eyes when you tell them the facts about it you'd be angry too. I swear. Every. Day. I deal with people. Now, most understand what I'm saying and agree that the media is making a lot of bullshit out of nothing but everyday I also get the idiot convinced that it's not a "real food", or that it's the reason why cancer and autism so common these days. (Yes, someone actually has made that claim to me.)

It also angers me because the media made a lot of fuss over nothing and an entire industry has been impacted and changed inside of a month because of it.

Now, it would mean something if the process was shady or there was something wrong with it, that if there was something shady going on or traceable problems. But there isn't.

Think of the origins of so many other products out there (again, particularly the Foxconn stuff that came out this past winter) whose origins have real consequences and shady origins. Why was Apple not forced to restructure their entire manufacturing processes and practices inside of a month due to the backlash for having products built in factory city staffed by preteen children working 12-hour days? A factory with such shitty working conditions that there's actually nets suspended around the place to catch suicides?

But, hey, some company is reclaiming otherwise to be thrown away meat in a perfectly legit process and adding it to our hamburger (something not greatly known for being high-quality eating in the first place). Well now it's time to bitch about it, impact an industry, cause a company to have to shut-down (costing jobs) a factory and undo 20 years of practice inside of a month.

Since most of my hamburger brought in from the warehouse will soon not contain LFT I'll have to raise my prices on it -again, it costs more- and you can be damn sure I'll hear complaints about that.

But heaven forbid people should pay more for their iPhone because Apple had to switch to a domestic factory not employing children driven to suicide.

 

[Roger Wilco]

The stuff they're calling "pink slime" is still 100% beef.

That's a completely meaningless statement. Bovine spinal fluid, ground up cow bones, and leather made from cow hide are 100% beef too but I wouldn't want it in my food, especially after it's been dragged through an ammonia bath.

Would you call gummy bears beef too?

I fucking hope that stuff doesn't exist in Europe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Dude, stop being so angry about it.

If you had to deal with idiots every. Single. Day. I swear. Every. Day. I deal with people.

Welcome to life.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Oh yeah, all those stupid people who care about what they put in their bodies. Fucking dumbasses, eh? Don't they know it's their job to swallow whatever the all-loving food industry serves them and not to question their infinitely wise judgement?

 

[ByrdMan]

The stuff they're calling "pink slime" is still 100% beef.

That's a completely meaningless statement. Bovine spinal fluid, ground up cow bones, and leather made from cow hide are 100% beef too but I wouldn't want it in my food, especially after it's been dragged through an ammonia bath.

Would you call gummy bears beef too?

I fucking hope that stuff doesn't exist in Europe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Beef is meat from a cow. It doesn't mean bones, leather, spinal fluid or any of that. Deer bones are not venison. Pig bones are not pork.

Trekker4747 statement is 100% correct.

 

[Amaris]

Oh yeah, all those stupid people who care about what they put in their bodies. Fucking dumbasses, eh? Don't they know it's their job to swallow whatever the all-loving food industry serves them and not to question their infinitely wise judgement?

In Trekker's defense, the media did blow this into a pointless shitstorm that has negatively affected a lot of jobs. He's also right that they're going to bitch just as loud when their significantly more expensive beef starts showing up in the meat case. The practice is very safe, and made it possible for lower income families to afford beef.