Attack of the Pink Slime!

[TheSeeker]

I'm not making anything up. What do you think all that high-powered pressing and squeezing does to a substance?

Unless that "high powered pressing and squeezing" is being done at th Large Hadron Collider, nothing at the molecular level.

 

[Alrik]

^

X2

Thanks for setting the record straight Trekker. I'm sick and tired of the lies that the media has been spinning about the product.

 

[Amaris]

^

X2

Thanks for setting the record straight Trekker. I'm sick and tired of the lies that the media has been spinning about the product.

X3. Also, hilarious.

 

[Alrik]

Unclear here J, Trekker's point, or my comment?

 

[TheSeeker]

I'm pretty sure he was laughing with us.

 

[Amaris]

^ Yep. Just having a laugh with you guys.

 

[Alrik]

Thought so. Was just making sure because, well, its just been one of "those" weeks so far.

 

[Amaris]

Thought so. Was just making sure because, well, its just been one of "those" weeks so far.

Oh, don't worry. I only mock you in private! "Behind closed doors!" I always say!

 

[Alrik]

You honor me with your restraint. Sometimes its not easy not to mock me in public.

 

[Amaris]

You honor me with your restraint. Sometimes its not easy not to mock me in public.

I am the paragon of virtue and wholesome goodness. I'm the metaphorical Nutrigrain bar that doesn't give you the shits.

 

[Alrik]

Impressive. Somehow we have managed to work the topic of "the shits" into a thread titled 'Attack of the Pink Slime'. We have now come full circle. My work here is done.

 

[Squiggy]

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!"

Why not just make the patties 10% smaller?

 

[O'Dib]

I don't much care if it's no less healthy than actual beef, that stuff ain't too good to begin with, and anything that shines a light on industrialized farming is good in my book. People should be as outraged about some of the more well-known practices that have been around even longer. That said, the fallout of this had better not get between me and my pork!

 

[horatio83]

I care because it's another aspect of the idiocy of the media and the American people that this is such an issue when there's nothing at all wrong with it -again it's 100% beef. When many other products have much more sinister things going on behind the scenes in their manufacturing process.

There are enough sinister things going on in the meat industry to convert the most hardcore meat fan to a veggie after he has actually seen how animals are treated.

 

[nightwind1]

It's fucking disgusting. It's a waste product.

It's NOT a waste product. It's the little bits of MEAT that are left stuck to the fat when the fat is trimmed. MEAT, not waste.

It would be waste if it wasn't recovered.

 

[nightwind1]

It's the shit that's scraped off the fucking bones of the animal mechanically. Don't tell me what's disgusting and what isn't.

Well, don't eat it, then.

 

[Trekker4747]

I don't much care if it's no less healthy than actual beef, that stuff ain't too good to begin with, and anything that shines a light on industrialized farming is good in my book. People should be as outraged about some of the more well-known practices that have been around even longer. That said, the fallout of this had better not get between me and my pork!

It's not "industrialized farming" it's industrialized processing, something that's industrialized anyway.

 

[nightwind1]

. . . Food is not just something that you put in your body to make it work properly.

I think it’s safe to say that most people enjoy eating, but some aren’t as fussy as others about what they eat. As for myself, if it tastes good and it contains proteins, carbohydrates and/or lipids that my body can assimilate, it’s food.

It's food but it's not art

Americans like tasty food. Healthy, tasty food is more expensive, so they opt, instead, for cheap, tasty food. Unfortunately, that cheap, tasty food is usually not nearly as good for you as what you would normally eat if you were in, say, Paris or Rome.

I've seen the way France does produce and meat, and it's far, far fresher than you'll get here outside of big cities with nearby ports of call.

You're lowering the standard for everyone. It's the wrong logic IMO.
We're not at war, there is no restrictions, you can afford to eat less but better quality.

Says the person who, being French, probably eats horse meat.

 

[horatio83]

So what? Horses, cattle and pigs are all fairly intelligent mammals. Eating horses is no better or worse worse than eating pigs. You are probably one of those folks who thinks that pigs are stupid and dirty and fail to see than we force them to live in their excrements.
You can say a lot of nasty things about the French ... but that they do not know how to cook and eat well would be utterly wrong.

Whether the industrial meat faction likes it or not, crappy meat remains crappy meat. Best is to stop eating meat all together, for the sake of health and climate but second-best is to stop eating raw amounts of low-quality industrial meat and start eating small amounts of high-quality meat instead.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I'm sorry, but hunger, real hunger, as in being so calories-deprived that your body digest itself trying to survive, is almost unheard of in the Western World. We are not talking about Darfur's children. We are talking about First World citizens, where bellies are too full, and endemic obesity is more a concern in the working class than lack of food. People should be less obsessed with eating more, and more concerned about eating better.

I'm with you, Iguana.

Fat is waste.

More fat is more waist. (And, yes, I know we need some fat.)