'Pink slime' in your meat? Labels to tell you, USDA says

[Eugene]

Source: MSNBC

'Pink slime' in your meat? Labels to tell you, USDA says

By JoNel Aleccia

As consumers clamor for more transparency about the beef product dubbed “pink slime,” federal agriculture officials have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels.

That means grocery shoppers soon could know whether some packages of ground beef contain the ammonia-treated meat that has been at the heart of a controversy that has shuttered plants, scuttled jobs and sparked uproar over the contents of the nation’s hamburgers.

Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety branch, said Tuesday he could not identify the firms that sought labeling changes, or even say how many were involved. He only confirmed that the agency has received voluntary requests from beef firms to change their labels to indicate it contains lean finely textured beef, or LFTB.

“We’ve determined that such requests will be approved,” Fillpot said.

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Read more: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/04/11006836-pink-slime-in-your-meat-labels-to-tell-you-usda-says

[cindyperry2010]

1. the whole thing is just

gross and i do not want ammonia in my meat

[jberryhill]

3. Just out of curiousity....

What is it that you do to prevent your own digestive system from making ammonia when it breaks down meat proteins?

I'd be fascinated to know how you get around this unavoidable fact of your own biochemistry.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/135731-ammonia-levels-liver-disease/

Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, contain nitrogen. When a diet contains a lot of protein or not enough carbohydrates, the body will metabolize amino acids for energy. Amino acid metabolism removes the nitrogen in the form of ammonia. The liver converts this ammonia to urea, a much less toxic compound, which is then excreted by the kidneys.

[cindyperry2010]

5. I do not want someone else putting additives in my food

especially ammonia

[jberryhill]

14. Ammonium bicarbonate used to be more common than baking powder

Stay away from cheese and cookies, since ammonia compounds are commonly used to make them.

[LanternWaste]

15. I imagine it's much more entertaining to minimize and trivialize

I imagine it's much more entertaining to trivialize a person's own food choices than it is to focus on the labeling that should have present originally.

Next up, let's all point fingers and laugh at Upton Sinclair's character, Jurgis Rudkus-- as we all know that by it's very definition, tubercular beef is "all-natural".




When we minimize wholly personal choices an individual makes through back-handed questions, we often advertise far more about ourselves than any one else...

[jberryhill]

16. That's a great book

I haven't seen one health fact in any of the discussion of pink slime.

Perhaps you could provide some figures on the ammonia level in it? Do you ingest more ammonia from eating a ground beef patty with slime added, or from inhaling Windex fumes when you do the windows? Do you know, or do you simply not care?

The absence of facts from the discussion is what is striking to me.

I absolutely believe that people should know what is in their food. What the pink slime discussion tends to indicate is that there is a surprising level of ignorance on the subject.

Meat - plain old meat - is a food source that has a lot of downsides, slime or not. Okay, so it is leftover parts that have had the fat centrifuged, then exposed to ammonia gas, and then extruded. Those facts convey utterly no useful information.

It is used as a filler to reduce proportional fat content in ground beef. Okay... well the FAT is where a lot of cumulative toxins and pharmaceuticals fed to the cattle tends to concentrate. So, I'd be fascinated to know, relative to the fat which has been reduced, whether the introduction of pink slime materially changes the health consequences.

Those types of questions are simply rational ones to ask, and for which nobody seems to have a clue.

But when someone says, "I do not want someone else putting additives in my food" I gotta wonder what such a person usually eats.

[cindyperry2010]

17. the basic point being is

that i have a right to know exactly what is in my food. i do not want someone putting additives in my food that i do not know about

[killbotfactory]

18. Valid health concerns or not, the way the beef is processed makes is unappetizing to people

When you grind beef, it creates a new surfaces for bacteria to grow. That, plus the questionable standards and practices involved with the creation of most ground beef, is why it is recommended that people don't eat pink hamburgers. Before any pink slime is added, the way cheap ground beef is processed is already fairly unappetizing.

When you eviscerate it like the lean finely textured beef, you create even more places for bacteria to grow, which is why they treat it with ammonia. The parts used to make it also come from parts of the cow that are most often contaminated with feces. Before they invented the process to disinfect it, the product could not be used for human consumption.

So, these stores were selling a product labeled as ground beef, something that most everyone understands as cuts of meat run through a grinder, while adding in the filler from off-cuts that are at most risk of being contaminated with feces that have been highly processed and chemically treated. Not only stores, but schools have been using this product because it's cheap. Is it really so hard to understand why there is a consumer backlash?

"Safe to eat" isn't isn't synonymous with "appetizing".

"Don't worry, any bacteria from fecal matter in the meat has been killed off by ammonia and heat!" is not that reassuring to people.

[jberryhill]

20. I already said it should be labeled

But there is some question as to whether it was labeled as "pink slime" or textured finely ground beef or whatever they are calling it.

Absolutely, meat processing of all kinds is unappetizing. I have no respect for people who would eat chicken but wouldn't chop the head off of one themselves.

This thing strikes me more like Harold Hill going off about the evils of pool tables. It's not as if some dark "secret" has been exposed here. People in general are thoroughly ignorant of their own life support systems. Water comes out of the tap. From where? Who knows. Electricity comes out of the socket. How was it generated? No idea.

People don't know where their own shit goes after they flush the toilet. It disappears down the drain and that is the end of their thought and involvement in the topic (unless they own a septic system).

Take just normal pork, for example. How many people who eat pork, in your estimation, know the first thing about confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), what is involved in their operation, what it has done to the genetics of the meat itself, and why some town in flyover country may be wiped off the map by millions of gallons of shit?

They have no idea, but you can surely scare the living daylights out of a lot of people by bringing mundane things to their attention, and it is a sure sign that there is a hell of a lot going on to which people, if they give a shit about what it takes to maintain civilization in some kind of relatively sane way, need to start giving a lot more shits about.

[DeschutesRiver]

19. But it isn't about you or the USDA or my neighbor's decisions/choices; it is about mine.

So I think the solution is just to put all that is contained within a product on the label, and I will decide for myself.

I don't eat certain things that are in supermarkets, because of what is on the label. My list would probably grow if I had accurate labels in front of me, but that will never be 100% possible. That said, I'd still prefer more not less info, so that I can make an attempt at adequate risk management (not elimination).

As for the fact that ammon. bicarb. used to be used a ton - yes, and there are lots of things that used to be commonly used that are not now (even some for health reasons) so that isn't persuasive. A.B. does make baked goods very light - and stink like ammonia and taste like ammonia in certain applications.

When I make cookies, I don't like a certain ingredient that is typically present in baking powder, so I get the brand without that ingredient. And I still can make my cookies. And I can do that without arguing with anyone over whether my reasons for wishing to have "aluminum free" baking powder are good enough for them in their lives....because it is on the label, and I can "choose" for myself. Like an adult.

So this is about knowing what is in the stuff we buy. I just don't see the argument against that, other than we should let people be treated like children and let manufacturers make those decisions for them. I'd rather not continue to see us head in that direction.

[sudopod]

9. Then you wouldn't mind a nice juicy turdburger eh?

You've got plenty of those in your body, unless you've been fasting. :p

http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2011/07/22/update-on-the-turd-burger/

(thank god it wasn't real lol)

[PoliticAverse]

2. 'lean finely textured beef' sounds like something you'd want your beef to consist of. n/t

[jberryhill]

10. Is it better or worse than the fat it replaces?

[joshcryer]

12. Fat tastes good. Bacon.

[ThomThom]

4. they should list everything in their products

all tenderizers, antibiotics and hormones

[FarCenter]

6. Labeling? I thought that the manufacturer was going out of business?

Pink Slime Bankruptcy: Beef Processor AFA Foods Files For Chapter 11 Amid 'Pink Slime' Uproar

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/pink-slime-bankruptcy_n_1397432.html?ref=food

[customerserviceguy]

8. Wonder what the label will say?

I have little faith it will say "pink slime". It will just be that silly-ass bullshit term the industry uses to disguise it.

[jberryhill]

13. "Freedom Meat"

[woo me with science]

21. !

[customerserviceguy]

23. Too funny! n/t

[woo me with science]

22. "have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels. "

"have agreed to allow several..."

Clear labeling should be required.