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Friday, March 09, 2012

Pink Slime- There Go My Hamburgers

By Susan Duclos

Quick break from politics because hamburgers, meatloaf and meatballs are important!

What is Pink Slime? ABC News tells us:

As seen in the movie Food Inc., the low-grade trimmings come from the most contaminated parts of the cow and were once only used in dog food and cooking oil. But because of BPI’s 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.


ABC News also informs the public that pink slime is in 70 percent of the ground beef you buy in your grocery store and some estimate up to 25 percent in every hamburger.

Lovely.

“What stores use pink slime?” Rittenhouse wrote.

So ABC News producers traveled across the country to the meat section to see if its in the ground beef they sell. Most couldn’t tell us for sure.

“There is no way to even know from labels or even from the butchers here whether it contains pink slime,” said ABC News producer Candace Smith in New York.

“The guy at the meat counter said that he had been getting the same question all day,” said Janice McDonald in Atlanta.

ABC News emailed the top 10 grocery chains in America. Only Publix, Costco, HEB and Whole Foods responded, saying they don’t use pink slime. No word yet from the rest.


Still want burgers, meatloaf and meatballs, use other cuts, like ground chuck, ground round or ground sirloin, according to eatlikenoone those cuts must contain nothing but meat from specific parts of the cow, such as the chuck primal, round primal, or the sirloin area.

Also some good news and bad news....the good news is, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell have all stopped using pink slime and the bad news is that the USDA purchasing 7 million pounds of pink slime for school lunches.

Below is the ABC News report on pink slime.

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Consider this a public service announcement and now back to regularly scheduled political programming.........

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