We are paying the price for convenience. Getting our food ground, packaged, cooked, prepared, frozen and labeled, often means that we have no idea what we are eating. We have been eating pink slime for years, until the two USDA scientists could not stand the fraud and complained to their bosses. Gerald Zirnstein and Carl Custer, two (former) USDA scientists, wrote a memo to their managers that what is labeled ‘lean finely textured beef’ is in fact a product made of beef waste that is trimmed, drained from fat and treated with ammonia gas, and mixed with regular ground beef. Yummy. That unholy mix was everywhere: in our school cafeterias, in the restaurants and in grocery stores.
USDA claims that the beef manufacturers are not obligated to mention on labels that the”pink slime” â„¢ is included, nor are they obligated to mention ammonia treatment. What is even worse, nobody bothered to find out if any of it is harmful to human health.
Sarah Klein, a lawyer with CSPI (Science in the Public Interest), Washington-based consumer watchdog, believes that pink slime is more unsavory than unhealthy, but that the consumers have the right to know and decide if they are willing to pay for it or not. The whistleblower Gerald Zirnstein believes it is all about money ” “ beef industry is making pretty penny by adding to our burger mix what was previously used for dog food.
Most fast food chains as well as school cafeterias announced that they will stop using ground beef with added ” Ëœpink slime” â„¢. But, since nobody is legally obligated to mention it, you might still be paying for ” Ëœpink slime” â„¢ if you are buying your ground meat in your local grocery store. The only way to be sure is to buy a chunk of lean beef and grind it yourself.
With very lose labeling laws, pink slime is the danger you know about. Until someone decides to find out what is in our hot dogs, mortadela, pate” ¦
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