Americans eat garbage

I'm a fan of what Jamie Oliver is trying to do. Thats why it aggrevages me when people, Conmservatives like myself, criticise Michele Obama and other when they try to get our food industry to make healthier food for our schoolchildren to eat.

Like Jamie, I too, love a good hamburger from time to time. But I want burgers made from the good parts. Not the highly processed garbage we get at fast food places. And imo, the stuff we get at fast food joints is probably a lot healthier than what the USDA gives the schools to serve to the kids.

'Pink Slime' Will Be a Choice for Schools

ABC News has the learned that on Thursday the U.S. Department of Agriculture will announce that starting this fall, schools will be able to choose whether or not they buy hamburger that contains lean finely textured beef known as " pink slime."

The announcement comes one week after ABC News reported on the beef filler commonly known as "pink slime," which is found in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets. The low-grade trimmings come from the parts of the cow most susceptible to contamination, often close to the hide, which is highly exposed to fecal matter. But because the treatment of the trimmings - simmering them in low heat, separating fat and tissue using a centrifuge and spraying them with ammonia gas to kill germs - the United States Department of Agriculture says it's safe to eat.

There is only one way to know for certain that "pink slime" is not in your beef: If your meat is stamped USDA Organic, it's pure meat with no filler.

Otherwise, you can't know from the packaging because "pink slime" does not have to appear on the label. And the USDA is giving no indication it will force meat packers to lift the veil of secrecy any time soon

Yahoo News source

Dennis324 wrote:the United States Department of Agriculture says it's safe to eat.

Here's a good way to check that: bring in a new law that says that any meat served in USDA HQ/offices around the country has to be made form at least 50% "pink slime". If they protest, there's something wrong with it :-p

Miles1 wrote:

Dennis324 wrote:the United States Department of Agriculture says it's safe to eat.

Here's a good way to check that: bring in a new law that says that any meat served in USDA HQ/offices around the country has to be made form at least 50% "pink slime". If they protest, there's something wrong with it :-p

I used to work for the USDA (Forest Service), and we had nothing to do with that! Most of the stuff they shove down school kids throats hardly classify as edible. I remember seeing a documentary (I wanna say it was Supersize Me) where they showed that many schools can prepare and serve healthy meals made of fresh nutrients for the price of the nasty pre-prepared and highly processed crap they usually feed the kids. Not only did the kids that received this food prefer it, but they where healthier and performed better than they did before implementation of this food program. The problem is that 1) school cooks don't want to/know how to cook (rather they just heat up the premade stuff that gets dropped off) and 2) many of the districts enjoy too close a relation with the contractors who provide the slop.

Beef Products Inc. has lost, at least temporarily, the public-opinion battle over what critics call “pink slime,” and that also meant more than 200 people at the company’s Amarillo plant lost their jobs Monday.

“While lean finely textured beef was given a catchy and clever nickname in ‘pink slime,’ the impact of alarming broadcasts about this safe and wholesome beef product by Jamie Oliver, ABC News and others are no joke to those families that are now out of work,” said American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle in a written statement.

In all, Beef Products temporarily closed three of its four plants, putting more than 600 people out of work. The Amarillo plant produced 200,000 pounds a day of the product and the other two plants combined to make 600,000 pounds a day.

Eldon and Regina Roth founded the company in Amarillo in 1981 to produce what the beef industry calls “lean finely textured beef” rather than using the “pink slime” term that caught on in national media and social media. The process involves removing fat from trimmings that result from the fabrication of beef cuts, treating the resulting beef fibers with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens and freezing the product. After processing, it resembles a frozen paste.

Some of the products that contain the product include fresh retail ground beef, low-fat hot dogs, lunch meats, beef sticks, pepperoni, frozen entrees, meatballs and canned foods, according to a variety of industry websites.

Eldon Roth came to Amarillo on Monday to tell the employees about the decision to close the plant but pay them for 60 days and continue benefits during that time.

“While we’re doing our best to communicate the facts about our product, the media firestorm over a manufactured scandal has caused real damage to our company,” said Craig Letch, the company’s director of food safety and quality assurance. “We’re doing everything we can to set the record straight, but we know this will take time.”

Bettina Siegel, of Houston, who has gathered more than 250,000 signatures on an online petition asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pull the product from school lunches, has been one of those using social media in the fight.

The Food and Drug Administration and Food Safety and Inspection Service have approved the use of ammonium hydroxide to increase food safety for several decades, according to a USDA fact sheet. Also, there have been no reports of illness caused by the product. But the fight hasn’t waned.

“Even apart from safety concerns, it is simply wrong to feed our children connective tissues and beef scraps that were, in the past, destined for use in pet food and rendering and were not considered fit for human consumption,” Siegel wrote in her blog.

Beef Products disputes that characterization.

“Basically, it’s cuts off roasts and steaks that’s roughly 50 percent lean and 50 percent fat,” Letch said.

He declined comment on what the meatpackers in the region will do in response to the loss of Beef Products as a purchaser of about 400,000 pounds of trim daily.

However, Tyson Foods said it is making adjustments.

“Our company is one of many beef processors that sell beef trimmings to BPI. The reduction of BPI’s operations means less lean meat will be recovered and more of the beef trimmings will be converted into lower-value products,” said Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson. “We’re making some modifications in our production processes to adjust for this change. We’re also making adjustments to accommodate our customers that no longer want BPI’s Lean Finely Textured Beef in their ground beef.”

Beef Products buys the trimmings from most packing plants in the region, except Cargill’s.

“We produce our own version of this product, calling it finely textured beef,” said Cargill spokesman Mike Martin. “That’s what we produce with the type of trim referred to in your question. The primary difference is that we use citric acid as a food safety measure, whereas BPI uses ammonium hydroxide.”

For several months, the bad news for Beef Products has just gotten worse, especially in the past two weeks. In December, McDonald’s announced it would not use the beef product. After that, companies such as grocery stores Safeway, Kroger and Food Lion and fast-food chains Burger King and Taco Bell stepped away from the product. Then the USDA said it would let schools opt out of using the product during the next school year.

Brent Hoover with Chartwells, the company that manages the food programs at Amarillo Independent School District, said the district will not have to make adjustments.

“We do not purchase any of the meat from the suppliers in question,” Hoover said.

Last week, Walmart and Sam’s Club joined the exodus.

“While the USDA and experts agree that beef containing (lean finely textured beef) is safe and nutritious, we are committed to listening to our customers and providing the quality products they want at prices they can afford,” the companies said in a news release.

Replacing the product may put more pressure on the beef industry to keep production at an affordable price with the national beef herd shrunk to levels not seen since the 1950s.

“The estimate is it would take 1.5 million more cattle a year to replace what’s being lost here,” said Eric Mittenthal, vice president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute.

The World Health Organization has listed hundreds of food types that may be processed using ammonium hydroxide when used in accordance with good manufacturing practices. These include dairy products, confections, fruits and vegetables, baked goods, breakfast cereals, eggs, fish, beverages such as sports drinks and beer, and meats.

For now, Beef Products plans to pursue a public education program. On Sunday, it ran a full-page ad in the Amarillo Globe-News saying “libel to cost this country jobs,” and included a letter on food safety.

The same ad ran nationally in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

“We hope once people understand who we are and what we do, we can reopen our facilities,” Letch said.

The company has started a website, www.beefisbeef.com, toward that end amongst a sea of other sites competing for attention, many opposing use of the product. A Google search for “pink slime” returned almost 98 million results Monday evening. Siegel’s blog is at www.the lunchtray.com.
Source

So am I supposed to feel sorry for the loss of jobs for these people who have been putting this gar age into our food for devcades? Well... I dont.

I dont know what disgusts me more...using ammonia to kill bacteria and e-coli that is found in these meat by products, or the fact that the meat by prducts are made of parts of the animal that we normally toss out. I'm seriously thinking about giving up on eating ground beef and turkeys from now on. No more boloney or hot dogs either. Yuk!

Its just like how I feel about the people who made mustard gas. I'm sure sorry they're out of a job, but the world is a better place with them unemployed collecting benefits than it is with the product they produced.

Lol! Thats a good point.