What's in your beef?If you've been following one of the most disgusting food stories of the past year, you're already familiar with pink slime. The previously discarded beef cuttings that are now processed, sprayed with ammonia, and put back into your ground beef have been coming under fire because, well, it's disgusting.
First fast food chains like McDonald's (I know!) declared they would no longer buy ground beef that used pink slime as a filler, and finally our schools are allowed to turn it away as well. It still pops up in your grocery store, however, and you have no way of knowing since it's not listed as an ingredient anywhere on a package of beef.
All of this bad publicity is bad for the business, Beef Products, Inc., and they are suspending production in some of their plants for 60 days.
Did you catch that? "Some" of their factories, for only 60 days.
While I hate to see anyone lose their job for any amount of time, this paid leave will do little to nothing to solve the big picture problem we have here: Food stuffs are being hidden inside real food. These meat cuttings used to be found only in pet food, but if you can make a buck passing off chemically treated meat to unsuspecting humans, why not?
Sure it's great that Beef Products, Inc. is losing business, but they clearly don't give a crap about serving up this ammonia soaked slime to your family, so you can expect it to appear on your table again in about 60 days. They're counting on enough people not caring whether the conditions of the animals we eat is healthy, or so unhealthy that your food needs to be decontaminated by ammonia. Also, that these same people don't mind eating meat pieces processed into blocks of pink slime.
The only way to avoid the slime, truly, is to buy organic and avoid eating any meat outside your home that does not serve organic meat, or has come out against serving this mixture, like McDonald's.
Know your meat, and refuse anything less than the real deal. Then maybe Beef Products, Inc. can go out of business for more than 60 days. Otherwise, we'll be outraged again in a few months when the pink slime is back.
Do you think it's okay to eat pink slime?
Image via ilovebutter/Flickr
This Hot Dad Wants to Vacuum Your Rug
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
KStew Refuses to Shower
This Hot Dad Wants to Cook You Dinner
Comments 27
If the butcher says he doesn't use it, that is a type of warranty, then he will not be using it.
Find a butcher you trust. You'll pay a little more for your meat than you will getting it out of the grocery store pre-packaged fridge, but it'll be FAR better quality. MANY butchers grind their beef on-site. Our local grocer has an in-house butcher. Their grinder is sitting right there behind the meat counter. I've watched them grinding the meat and packaging it. They're very open (and proud, rightly so) about the quality of their meat, and I've come to trust them through the years.
I have refused to buy pre-packaged ground beef for years. To me, it doesn't taste right.
Meat, in moderation, IS good for you. Humans were designed to eat meat, there is no denying it.
Meat becomes unhealthy when corporations coat it in chemicals and inject the poor animals with hormones and antibiotics to counteract the unnatural diet they feed them.
Buy organic, find a farm share, and meat can be healthy.
Wow this whole epidemic is seriously making me want to become a vegetarian!
i think i may go back to being a vegetarian sooner than i thought.