Pink Slime - What's the big deal?

[FoolKiller]

What you like and what's good for you and the rest of civilization are most likely unrelated.

Awesome, but what I eat is my choice. I judge how I weigh what is good for me and the rest of civilization can make their own individual decisions. It is how free will works. I refuse to be an automoton, and I definitely refuse to quietly accept having my choices taken away from me by force.

The only way to stop global food production as it stands now is to stop buying mass produced ****. You know, the stuff in your paradise cheeseburger that was once graded as fit for animal consumption only?

Maybe we should add some qualifiers here. Once only graded as fit for animal consumption in its raw form. The FDA hasn't been banning gelatin, beef stock, etc.

What amazes me is how people are up in arms about the animal food fact and that it was made safe for humans. How dare they make it safe for human consumption!

Also, I shall take this opportunity to correct another misconception about this product. It was never "only" fit for animal consumption.

I will even use an ABC News story here, since they are one of the groups on the attack and killing jobs. What's a more credible source for non-negative facts than one of the Negative Nancies themselves?

Makers of “lean finely textured beef” and the USDA say that it is not an additive and need not be labeled, and is safe to eat. But critics, including former USDA scientists, contend the ammonia treated “pink slime” — made from low quality scraps once used for dog food and cooking oil — is less nutritious than pure ground beef.

Cooking oil.

For all "Pink Slime" naysayers:



Let's try again. How long have you been eating this stuff?

It's becoming globally accepted that the world is in for some very major changes over the next half a century, food just being part of it.

Globally accepted does not mean it is a good thing.

You can't have your cheeseburger and eat it.

Actually, I can. Well, until nosey nose reactionists begin thinking they know better than me what I can eat and make it illegal for me to think for myself. I'd rather they treat me like the adult I am and let me make my own decisions, good or bad. I've been wearing big boy pants for a while now.


As for my special diet, I make most of my own food. It is why I know that the process being used is nothing that we haven't done in one form or another for centuries. It also means that I know more than most people what is in the food I eat, because I have to. I have two choices when it comes to mass produced foods, find a version that fits my diet or learn how to make it myself so that it does, but still tastes good. Food and cooking is chemistry. It is all about chemical reactions. Altering pH levels via chemicals is a common practice that we do with foods all the time, even on something as simple as salads and sandwiches.

Look at a well stocked kitchen and compare it to a chemistry lab. Gas burners, magnetrons, convection and conduction heat chambers, dehydration chambers, centrifuges, multiple acids, multiple alkalines, iodized chemicals, lubricants, aprons, smocks, heat-resistant gloves, kevlar gloves, and multiple chemicals.

^I haven't said that you are not allowed to eat other things. But for meat only eat the pink slime one and you would see the results.

And what exactly in it would do that quicker than the cholesterol will affect you? I mean, if we are comparing red meat to red meat from a fat and cholesterol standpoint "pink slime" mixed meat is possibly better than the exact same slice of meat being ground without it, when comparing serving sizes.

It was just to refute the argument that if it doesn't show effects directly, it isn't that bad.

Well, what is in it that will affect you more than red meat without it eaten in the same amounts? We are 20 years into its use now.

 

[Omnis]

The lengths he goes to - pretty much required - to get tasty food that doesn't literally kill him never ceases to amaze me.

Mind you, I've got a friend with phenylketonuria. He will effectively die (through brain damage, oddly) if he eats much more than 20g of protein a day for any length of time. I've offered him a Famparmo (500g of protein in one go) if he ever feels like he can't go on, rather than waste money on a ticket to Switzerland.

Tell him I can vouch for that. I don't even have PKU and it almost killed me.

 

[FoolKiller]

PKU

💡

 

[Northstar]

As expected ground beef prices are rising.

Link

Have to love when a couple people screw the majority over.

 

[FoolKiller]

I have about ten pounds of beef in my freezer right now, so I should be good for a while, but this kind of thing sucks.


Another thing they mentioned is that we will either have to import more beef or raise more cattle to make up for this.

Raise more cattle?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-greenhouse-hamburger

Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry.

The FAO report found that current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of "CO2-equivalent" greenhouse gases the world produces every year. It turns out that producing half a pound of hamburger for someone's lunch a patty of meat the size of two decks of cards releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.

Who wants to bet the same the knee-jerk reactionaries that have gotten LFTB taken off shelves are some of the same ones that have knee-jerk reactions to man-made global warming concerns?



My new campaign: Save The Earth with Pink Slime, or STEPS.*

If you support green tech to save the Earth but are opposed to LFTB in your beef you are a hypocrite.*


Anyone with some Photoshop skills that wants to make a better logo, feel free. Be creative.





*Said with tongue planted firmly in cheek

 

[Luminis]

If you support green tech to save the Earth but are opposed to LFTB in your beef you are a hypocrite.*

Most people are hypocrits, I fear. Either that, or they've got the attention span of a fly. See Kony 2012 for reference.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Anyone with some Photoshop skills that wants to make a better logo, feel free. Be creative.

I like the current logo.

I wonder what they're going to do with the trimmings now. I like efficiency, so this is a let down.

 

[FoolKiller]

Most people are hypocrits, I fear. Either that, or they've got the attention span of a fly. See Kony 2012 for reference.

I wonder what they're going to do with the trimmings now. I like efficiency, so this is a let down.

Back to dog food and cooking oil or...

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...ime-in-your-meat-labels-to-tell-you-usda-says

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.

Voluntary labeling. Congratulations, all the whining has caused the beef industry to cave...or did it?

There is one very important key word here: Allow.

"federal agriculture officials have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels."

That wording would mean that they were not allowed to label it before, either purposely or requiring red tape to get permission. Thank God the government managed to keep us all safe, once again, by preventing an honest practice and then letting the private industry take the fall as greedy capitalists.

Ah well, I will now go into my local grocery and ask where the LFTB labeled meats are, and then buy them, or do a comparison.

But one thing jumped out at me today. I was fixing dinner and was using a package of Laura's Lean Beef. See, when we can't find the store brand (Walmart, Kroger, or Meijer, or Costco typically) beef in 90% lean or better we buy the slightly more expensive Laura's Lean. I checked the Laura's Lean Web site and they have never used LFTB. I asked my wife if she ever notices a difference between the store brand and Laura's Lean she said no. I don't think I can either.

Not scientific, but good early comparison. But to make my point, onec labeling is being done I will buy beef with and beef without, make hamburgers from both at the same time, and I will compare one to the other. I'll even include pictures here.


But I want to look at another part of the story I linked.

It consists of lean beef carcass trimmings, which have been separated from fat and treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli O157 and salmonella, before being ground, compressed into blocks and quick-frozen. Cargill treats LFTB differently, using citric acid to change the acidity of the beef to make it inhospitable to pathogens.

Somehow I missed that Cargill doesn't use ammonia hydroxide. Seeing as that is basically orange or lemon juice it probably wasn't in the scare tactic garbage media stories and Jamie Oliver idiocy. Are we still going to freak out about adding what is essentially lemon juice? Will we still definitely proclaim that eating this for decades will cause problems?

If one thing it backs up my claim that adjusting pH to kill bacteria is very common because this process makes them acidic.

 

[Northstar]

Figured I would bump this as ABC is being sued over their coverage.

This case should also be interesting just to see if networks are being held accountable for their reporting.

 

[FoolKiller]

Figured I would bump this as ABC is being sued over their coverage.

This case should also be interesting just to see if networks are being held accountable for their reporting.

Jamie Oliver isn't named. He's the a-hole that started this whole thing, and deletes any Web site comments or tweets from people questioning him about it. His little demonstration of pouring liquid ammonia on meat and stuffing it in a clothes washer is more libelous than anything ABC said. But he didn't name BPI, and that may be the difference.

 

[LeMansAid]

Not a meat eater, for what it's worth.

I don't see anything too horrific on either side. Oliver is pretty much just showing what the process is, but equally I think that using "pink slime" is only a good thing. Use as much of the animal as possible. Just because the material is usually used in "crap" food, doesn't mean that that's the only food it can be used for.

There are plenty of things that I find disgusting about the meat industry. Put in context, this is not one of them.

 

[niky]

Paranoia over procedures that aren't drastically different from other procedures that have been done for ages (and by drastically, I mean using different ingredients/chemicals/etcetera) distorts the market and causes confusion.

I'm still befuddled by how Americans can be so upset over this when they're not upset over the processes used to make ground beef, ground pork and... gasp... hotdogs... in the first place.

 

[LeMansAid]

I just don't understand the goal. If he turns people off this stuff, more animals die for the same amount of food.

Paranoia over procedures that aren't drastically different from other procedures that have been done for ages (and by drastically, I mean using different ingredients/chemicals/etcetera) distorts the market and causes confusion.

What to do if it's the truth though. Censor?

 

[FoolKiller]

Not a meat eater, for what it's worth.

I don't see anything too horrific on either side. Oliver is pretty much just showing what the process is,

His version is not remotely close to the truth. It would be like me pouring concentrated vinegar with 100% acidity on cucumbers and saying that's what you eat when you eat a pickle.

but equally I think that using "pink slime" is only a good thing. Use as much of the animal as possible. Just because the material is usually used in "crap" food, doesn't mean that that's the only food it can be used for.

This is the other issue I have with Oliver. It is also used to make stocks and cooking oils. Oliver's own recipe for beef stock calls for beef carcass scraps. Every decent cook or chef saves the unusable bits to boil them in water with seasonings. That becomes the base of soups, stews, and gravy. I could also go into the uses of the rendered fat scraps. When making homemade sausage with a lean meat, like turkey or venison, you have to get pork fat scraps from the butcher to add enough fat for the sausage to hold together.

In short, the only thing not useable is the bone remnants. And those will occasionally be added in a broken down form of calcium to bird feed suet, because birds need calcium to produce eggs. We even eat most of the organs and the tongue. I was actually looking at heart, liver, and tongue in the grocery this past week.

I'm still befuddled by how Americans can be so upset over this when they're not upset over the processes used to make ground beef, ground pork and... gasp... hotdogs... in the first place.

As someone who has had to take apart a whole rabbit, much to my wife's dismay, and made my own sausage, it's not that bad. I have a meat grinder. I've seen Playdoh toys look more disgusting.

But yes, Americans long ago forgot how how their food goes from farm to table, so this seems atrocious. I grew up in a farming community, so it doesn't bother me at all. Some of the mass produced farms actions do. It's why I buy most of my meat locally, and have a whole deer in my freezer.

 

[LeMansAid]

Diluted ammonia is still ammonia. Anyway, his approach wouldn't be at all effective if the majority of the population didn't live in Lah Lah Land. The indictment is much more on consumers, than him not having "DILUTED Ammonia" printed on the bottle.

 

[niky]

What to do if it's the truth though. Censor?

Contextualize. People get so uptight about OMG GMO! because they don't understand what else farmers and breeders have been doing over the millenia to come up with the "traditional" and "natural" crops we have now. Though, of course, there's that fringe element that would have us eating grain from weeds...

In this case, comparing the production of "pink slime" to hotdog or even Spam production, or the production of other products which uses ammonia, would go a long way to abating the hysteria.

His version is not remotely close to the truth. It would be like me pouring concentrated vinegar with 100% acidity on cucumbers and saying that's what you eat when you eat a pickle.

The "sodas melt teeth" hysteria is particularly irksome to me. As vinegar and even citrus juices will do the exact same thing.

This is the other issue I have with Oliver. It is also used to make stocks and cooking oils. Oliver's own recipe for beef stock calls for beef carcass scraps. Every decent cook or chef saves the unusable bits to boil them in water with seasonings. That becomes the base of soups, stews, and gravy. I could also go into the uses of the rendered fat scraps. When making homemade sausage with a lean meat, like turkey or venison, you have to get pork fat scraps from the butcher to add enough fat for the sausage to hold together.

In short, the only thing not useable is the bone remnants. And those will occasionally be added in a broken down form of calcium to bird feed suet, because birds need calcium to produce eggs. We even eat most of the organs and the tongue. I was actually looking at heart, liver, and tongue in the grocery this past week.

If the food here weren't so unhealthy, you'd absolutely love it.

As someone who has had to take apart a whole rabbit, much to my wife's dismay, and made my own sausage, it's not that bad. I have a meat grinder. I've seen Playdoh toys look more disgusting.

But yes, Americans long ago forgot how how their food goes from farm to table, so this seems atrocious. I grew up in a farming community, so it doesn't bother me at all. Some of the mass produced farms actions do. It's why I buy most of my meat locally, and have a whole deer in my freezer.

I have no issues with the butchering. It's just that food processing and the using of scraps, as you noted, is so common that the hysteria over pink slime seems incredibly silly.

 

[LeMansAid]

In this case, comparing the production of "pink slime" to hotdog or even Spam production, or the production of other products which uses ammonia, would go a long way to abating the hysteria.

Why though? If they're selling something, and presenting selective facts helps sell. They're meant to self-hinder?

If a particular carpenter advertises "free quotes" and all other carpenters do the same, but don't advertise it, should the first carpenter have to explain that the others also do?

 

[FoolKiller]

I can't remember if it was a tweet or a comment on his site, but I congratulated Jamie Oliver on his heroic efforts to eliminate 700 jobs, making it harder for them to feed their families. It was deleted in less than five minutes. He wants to cry on TV about what we feed our families, but won't accept that he has possibly made it hard for some families to feed themselves at all.

I keep hoping he does another one of his tours that comes through Kentucky. I will be there to confront him on it.

 

[LeMansAid]

I don't think that loss of jobs is a very good unit of measure. Stopping the ivory trade might sacrifice jobs for example, but does that mean that we shouldn't try to somehow stop people killing elephants? Isn't Oliver just selling himself (or something) though? Isn't it up to people to educate themselves, or be open to education from others?

It works very well for meat companies to keep realities at a distance for the average consumer. It's how they best (mis)represent their product. I see this as the equal opposite, and I'd have thought it would fit in with your free market attitude.

I applaud you for trying to do your little bit. And again, if an animal is killed I think we may as well use as much of it as possible. I'm just failing to see why you think that this is somehow outside of the free market mantra. But maybe you don't, and this is simply you doing your part within the free market system.

If only it wasn't so lonely for you.

 

[FoolKiller]

Diluted ammonia is still ammonia. Anyway, his approach wouldn't be at all effective if the majority of the population didn't live in Lah Lah Land. The indictment is much more on consumers, than him not having "DILUTED Ammonia" printed on the bottle.

Acetic acid is still acetic acid, but dumping household cleaners, soap scum removers, fabric softener, the compound for making photographic film on pickles, or showing it in its purest form, eating flesh, is not the same as making a pickling brine.

In Oliver's case, he uses a couple of gallons of liquid ammonia when the pink slime process involves a small amount of it in a gas form.

I don't think that loss of jobs is a very good unit of measure. Stopping the ivory trade might sacrifice jobs for example, but does that mean that we shouldn't try to somehow stop people killing elephants?

Ending jobs of family men who were not doing any harm to anyone or threatening to wipe out an entire species is far different than protecting a species from extinction through a wasteful practice (they should give me the elephant meat if they won't use it). Even then, I'm not a huge environmentalist. I am keeping a list of the various animals I have eaten and always ready to add to it.

Isn't Oliver just selling himself (or something) though? Isn't it up to people to educate themselves, or be open to education from others?

It works very well for meat companies to keep realities at a distance for the average consumer. It's how they best (mis)represent their product. I see this as the equal opposite, and I'd have thought it would fit in with your free market attitude.

Did I propose regulating Oliver? Or am I just using my free speech to refute his free speech? He's trying to call BS on the meat industry, and I'm trying to call BS on him. We are both free to do it. Free market means speaking with your wallet. I am, and trying to convince others they should too.

I'm just failing to see why you think that this is somehow outside of the free market mantra.

But maybe don't, and this is simply you doing your part within the free market system.

He uses his outlet to do/say things I disagree with. I am trying to convince others to see it my way and join me in boycotting him. That is free market. If I thought he should be regulated it wouldn't be, nor would it even be freedom. He is free to say what he wants. I am free to counter him publicly.

If you don't think that fits within the free market you might not understand the free market. Next you will be saying a competing business putting another out of business isn't free market.

If only it wasn't so lonely for you.

I live in a mostly rural state with a family made up of mostly farmers. How lonely do you think
I am on this issue? The only thing keeping Oliver from being credited for this is the fact that most Americans don't want to watch a British man cry over American food, so he didn't have a very big audience. But he used the term pink slime a year before the ABC report.

 

[LeMansAid]

I missed out a word. Perhaps that made it more confusing than it should have been.

But maybe you don't, and this is simply you doing your part within the free market system.

There was no sarcasm involved. Yet still...

If you don't think that fits within the free market you might not understand the free market. Next you will be saying a competing business putting another out of business isn't free market.

I hope that some day I might earn some benefit of the doubt.

Ending jobs of family men who were not doing any harm to anyone or threatening to wipe out an entire species is far different than protecting a species from extinction through a wasteful practice (they should give me the elephant meat if they won't use it).

See, you're selling your point with selective information as well. Subtle, but still there. Something to help with the emotive side of things.

I live in a mostly rural state with a family made up of mostly farmers. How lonely do you think
I am on this issue? The only thing keeping Oliver from being credited for this is the fact that most Americans don't want to watch a British man cry over American food, so he didn't have a very big audience. But he used the term pink slime a year before the ABC report.

I think that in the overall scheme of things, people like you that are willing to question, and act, are all too rare.

 

[niky]

Why though? If they're selling something, and presenting selective facts helps sell. They're meant to self-hinder?

If a particular carpenter advertises "free quotes" and all other carpenters do the same, but don't advertise it, should the first carpenter have to explain that the others also do?

Unfortunately, news agencies are supposed to be in the business of selling correct information. Supposed to be. Without proper context, information can be erroneously misleading.

I'm still irked that ABC News never got sued for their misleading "simulation" of sudden unintended acceleration. News programs have to be taken to task for spreading misinformation, innuendo and lies. And that sometimes means slanting the truth to portray industries and individuals in a negative light despite there being no quantitative or qualitative difference between them and other similar entities.

Of course, that's nevergonnahappen.com.

 

[LeMansAid]

Ah, I think I had mistaken some of your comments as directed towards Oliver, rather than ABC.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Diluted ammonia is still ammonia. Anyway, his approach wouldn't be at all effective if the majority of the population didn't live in Lah Lah Land. The indictment is much more on consumers, than him not having "DILUTED Ammonia" printed on the bottle.

Sodium fluoride is still sodium fluoride though the concentrations and effects are quite different than what you find in toothpaste and rat poison. So obviously the toothpaste industry has it out for us, in their global conquest, people like Oliver one don't understands elements and compounds (since we ingest many things that make many other things), and when they don't, two, make broad sweeping suggestions. Because the whole idea is it looks, walks and talks like a duck too bad there are so of us who actually have to learn this stuff and know better.

 

[LeMansAid]

I don't know if he understands elements and compounds or not. I'm quite sure that he's trying to sell us something, even if it's just image being sold. It's tv, and the processes on display are just representations to all bar the complete idiots of this world.

I'll say it again, I think that people should be eating their pink slime.

 

[niky]

Ah, I think I had mistaken some of your comments as directed towards Oliver, rather than ABC.

Ah... well, these new age health nuts are bad, but bad as in misguided rather than with ill intentions... though of course, Jamie Oliver is selling something. Selling himself, first and foremost, but also his advocacy of healthy eating.

It's strange, of course, when he does something like this, yet, as @FoolKiller points out, he uses the exact same "garbage" in some of his own cooking.

-

Yum. Pink Slime. Considering I eat snails, frog's legs, snail eggs, duck embryos, innards, crickets and various Chinese potted meats of unknown origin, "pink slime" isn't all that weird, for me.

 

[FoolKiller]

I missed out a word. Perhaps that made it more confusing than it should have been.

There was no sarcasm involved. Yet still...


I hope that some day I might earn some benefit of the doubt.

I felt you were hedging with your comment about me thinking this is my part in the free market, or however you put it.

See, you're selling your point with selective information as well. Subtle, but still there. Something to help with the emotive side of things.

True. But I've seen the people who lost their jobs with their families vs the image we all have of poachers. That probably tainted my comment a bit. Much like the Lorax I believe sustainable capitalism is necessary. Anyone willing to recklessly kill off their supply of business fails in many ways.

I think that in the overall scheme of things, people like you that are willing to question, and act, are all too rare.

Yeah. Too often people just repeat back to me the stuff they hear on the news. My boss thinks I'm a centrist liberal. My family thinks I'm a centrist conservative. They all tell me I wasted my vote when I don't vote for a member of one of the two major parties. Politics becomes team sports. Currently Obama gets my wrath, but just because he's head of the government, which is what I am really complaining about.

My brother and I find ourselves being driven insane by the world around us. We have very different politics, but ultimately we agree the whole world is full of misdirection and lies. This weekend we both got hung up on an NBC story that said people who drink diet sodas are more likely to have a heart attack. After we got to the fourth paragraph of the article they finally mention the scientists saying that it isn't caused by diet sodas, but more likely the fact that most people who drink diet sodas are compensating for other bad behaviors. But the headline screamed "Diet Sodas Linked with Heart Disease, Death." They know few Americans read more than a headline and maybe a paragraph. Plus the fourth paragraph was below the fold, something regularly known in media circles to rarely be read.

 

[niky]

"Diet Sodas Linked with a Heart Disease, Death."

Not the first time. A Singaporean study did the exact same thing, with the exact same headline.

The authors' disclaimer that they didn't control for other factors and that they noted diet soda drinkers ate more beef and fatty foods than juice drinkers was buried pretty deep in the literature and the news reports.

 

[FoolKiller]

Oh look! Beef prices shot up, suddenly pink slime is not such a big issue and the plants are starting to open.

http://news.yahoo.com/beef-products-inc-reopens-plant-pink-slime-lawsuit-232614486--sector.html

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Beef Products Inc will reopen a Kansas processing plant on Monday to boost production of "lean finely textured beef," which critics call "pink slime," as wholesale beef prices soar with a shrinking U.S. cattle herd.The reopening of the Garden City, Kansas, plant comes more than two years after it was shuttered following a national media controversy about the BPI product.

The plant will collect raw chunks of meat and fat beef trimmings from a neighboring Tyson Foods slaughterhouse, package them into large bins, and then ship the refrigerated containers to BPI's processing facility in Dakota City, Nebraska, BPI said on Tuesday.

The company aims to hire 40 to 45 people for the Kansas plant, which had more than 230 employees prior to its closure.

And the article shows that they are suing ABC News too.

 

[JMoney]

A news corporation getting sued 👍.

I don't care what's in my food as long as the food tastes good and doesn't make me sick. The reason all of these additives are in food in the first place is pretty much those two reasons.