According to recent news stories (here and here), the USDA has approved the use of so-called "lean textured fine beef" or "boneless lean beef trimmings", aka "pink slime", in school meals.
Pink slime is basically recovered beef meat that has been treated with ammonia gas. In this case, "recovered" refers to the fact that this meat used to be deemed unsuitable for human consumption, in part because slaughter conditions made unhealthy by exposing it to cow feces. It is "recovered" in the sense that it's no longer used as dog food. In other words, it's recovered because it now generates a higher revenue than it used to.
If you live in the USA, pink slime can be part of your hamburger today, and you'll never know it because it doesn't have to be labeled - after all, it's just meat.
If this seems strange to you, it's because it is.
Pink slime might well epitomize the problem of industrial meat production. We have animals that are slaughtered in factories, their carcases treated with toxic chemicals, and the resulting "meat" sold to unwitting consumers. At the same time, the USDA refuses to mandate clear labeling thereby preventing consumers from making informed purchasing decisions.
Digression: why oppose labeling? those with nothing to hide will not fear labeling requirements, unless it's the cost of the label that's the problem??
To argue, as the president of the American Meat Institute, that pink slime reduces waste and is therefore a "sustainable" product is to insult the intelligence of one's audience. There is nothing sustainable about the mode of production that produces pink slime. Industrial meat production is, by its very nature, unsustainable, as argued elsewhere on this blog. While I do not doubt that producing and selling pink slime is financially profitable, its production cannot transform an unsustainable industry into a sustainable one. To invoke sustainability is disingenuous, if not outright mendacious.
Personally, I sidestep this entire problem by not eating much hamburger to start with. If I do, I buy it straight from my butcher and watch him grind it for me using his refrigerated grinder - I know exactly what cut of beef he's using to make my hamburger.
If you don't have access to a butcher, or if your butcher won't grind your beef to order, you have three choices if you want to be sure to avoid pink slime:
Pink slime is basically recovered beef meat that has been treated with ammonia gas. In this case, "recovered" refers to the fact that this meat used to be deemed unsuitable for human consumption, in part because slaughter conditions made unhealthy by exposing it to cow feces. It is "recovered" in the sense that it's no longer used as dog food. In other words, it's recovered because it now generates a higher revenue than it used to.
If you live in the USA, pink slime can be part of your hamburger today, and you'll never know it because it doesn't have to be labeled - after all, it's just meat.
If this seems strange to you, it's because it is.
Pink slime might well epitomize the problem of industrial meat production. We have animals that are slaughtered in factories, their carcases treated with toxic chemicals, and the resulting "meat" sold to unwitting consumers. At the same time, the USDA refuses to mandate clear labeling thereby preventing consumers from making informed purchasing decisions.
Digression: why oppose labeling? those with nothing to hide will not fear labeling requirements, unless it's the cost of the label that's the problem??
To argue, as the president of the American Meat Institute, that pink slime reduces waste and is therefore a "sustainable" product is to insult the intelligence of one's audience. There is nothing sustainable about the mode of production that produces pink slime. Industrial meat production is, by its very nature, unsustainable, as argued elsewhere on this blog. While I do not doubt that producing and selling pink slime is financially profitable, its production cannot transform an unsustainable industry into a sustainable one. To invoke sustainability is disingenuous, if not outright mendacious.
Personally, I sidestep this entire problem by not eating much hamburger to start with. If I do, I buy it straight from my butcher and watch him grind it for me using his refrigerated grinder - I know exactly what cut of beef he's using to make my hamburger.
If you don't have access to a butcher, or if your butcher won't grind your beef to order, you have three choices if you want to be sure to avoid pink slime:
- grind your own hamburger
- eliminate hamburger from your diet
- shop only at supermarkets that guarantee that their ground beef is "pink slime"-free. There is a list of supermarkets in the ABC story linked above.
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