What the heck is pink slime in ground beef?

It is ground up animal sinew, left over from processing the rest of critters, probably picked up off of the floor of the processing plant, and treated with ammonium hydroxide which is sort of pink. It was used as a filler by fast food restaurants until certain whistle blowers started talking about it. One by one, fast food industries are repudiating their use of it. The government approves of its use in school lunch programs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/pink-slime-in-school-lunches-government-is-buying-7-million-pounds-worth/2012/03/07/gIQAKIzRxR_blog.html
On a similar topic, if you are going to eat ground meat, you really should grind it yourself, or buy it from a reliable butcher :)

Saint, animal sinew? Sounds sickening. Where can I buy an electric grinder?

Williams Sonoma. I’m serious.

That’s it….no burgers, ever again. Gag!

@Coloma Just grind it yourself. It is really easy, not that expensive, better tasting and better for you. I am not much of a meat eater, but if I cook burgers I either grind beef chuck or round myself, or buy it from a local butcher. It is not that much more expensive, it is sort of fun, and it is so much better. If I add filler, I know what it is, and it is nutritious and clean.

Saint, thanks. Glad I am not alone in my boycott of Pink Slime.

They could have at least picked a more appetizing name for it, other than slime.

@john65pennington What good is a whistle blower if they can’t get your attention?

Don’t forget the silica…

@saint Yeah, I’m not much of a beef eater myself, hmm…a meat grinder, it would probably go the way of my juicer. lol

If you get a meat grinder, you have to make sure you clean it properly or else you’ll have your own health issue at home.

I buy my meat at a local butcher. My son works there and cleans up after the meat cutters. He watches them work. I have confidence in them, I don’t buy meat anywhere else.

Wait… is this filler used in the ground beef you buy at the grocery store?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?pagewanted=all

This pretty much outlines the process from a reliable source. This is not new info. But I’m glad its back in the headlines again.

The biggest problem is that the ammonia is not required to be listed as an ingredient because its termed a ” process” and the govt. does not require disclosure for any amount up to 10%

Any pre ground beef which comes from a processing plant is suspect. So if you’re buying those large 3–5 pound rolls of ground beef on sale its almost certain to contain up to 10% of pink slime.

And even seeing it in the meat case ” freshly ground” is no guarantee either unless you witness them taking a huge chunk of beef and outing it through the grinder before your eyes.

I once asked one of the young guys at the meat counter at Kroger, he told me that it came from the factory already ground in large 5–10 pound bags and then reground with a smaller opening each morning enabling them to make the claim of fresh ground.

AUTHOR: chances are that if you’re buying your ground beef at a typical large supermarket chain the chances are in the 70–80% range that its from a processing planting thats the percentage estimated to contain pink slime. Since they’re not required to disclose it, most do to lessen costs.

And with McDonalds and others announcing they’re no longer going to use it, I look at that as nothing more than PR feel good nonsense craps. If they get their beef from a processing plant, they have no way of knowing. And if they ever get caught at it, they can just blame the plant as the scapegoat.

I just done buy fast food hamburgers or anything using ground beef PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS. I prefer my food to be free of both ammonia and E-coli.

@john65pennington

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRBkwUt-bqIo&v=RBkwUt-bqIo&gl=US

Heres a lovely video presentation by Jamie Oliver with a “homemade” demo version of this lovely process. Obviously, the plants use large centrifuges and “ammonium hydroxide” rather than buying regular household ammonia but this vid gives a pretty good representation of whats going on behind the scenes in most meat plants in our fair land. Lovely, huh?

Here we go again.

From Snopes Pink slime Read it.
Also, read this. It refers to McDonald’s standards of beef.

There is nothing wrong with McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, or anyone else’s beef except for hype and hysteria. Their meat is fresher than the beef you got three weeks ago and put in the freezer, which is still there. They have less need of preservatives than grocery shoppers like us do because they turn their food around a hundred times faster than the average household.

The problem is with people going through the drive through and ordering three times more food than their body needs just because it’s convenient.

Get over it.

O wait! What happened to them putting ground up worms in the beef for “filler”? Ya’ll belie that?

Pound for pound worms are far more expensive than beef. But that’s beside the point.

@Dutchess_III

Ok. I read the SNopes item which deals primarily with chicken except for one small section at the end. And if people are confusing the two processes, thats an error.

But did you take the time to read the Times article linked ? Their info does not come from rumors about worms, etc. but from US Govt. testing and standards. The Ammonium Hydroxide unlike the worms, is definitely NOT a rumor but a FACT. (Otherwise the Times could be sued by the beef processing plants for printing incorrect info.

And if you did read it, I guess you missed this salient info:

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records show. Yet the facility remained approved by the U.S.D.A. for other customers.

Presented by The Times with the school lunch test results, top department officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues in the lunch program had been finding for years
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

These are not unsubstantiated rumors about worms. There are real safety issues here as well as taste issues. The basic gist of the article is that if they raise the amount of ammonia to be certain of killing the necessary pathogens, they get complaints about the ammonia smell. So if they reduce the amount of ammonia in the process, then the safety is compromised. This is an ongoing issue.

And all so that they can save 3 cents a pound on costs. Thats ridiculous. But this is what schoolchildren are exposed to in lunch programs all over the country.

So, if you don’t mind ammonia with your meat, by all means enjoy to your hearts content. Ill make other choices.

McDonald’s can make any kind of assertions they want to but the plain fact is that until this practice was made widely known, they were perfectly happy to serve this carp to their customers for years.

Ill stick to the coffee. Thats enough Mickey. D. For me.

@Buttonstc Aren’t we supposed to assume ecoli and salmonella possibly in ground beef and chicken respectively? That is why we are supposed to cook to a specific temperature. Don’t get me wrong, I rather the bacterias were not there, not a concern, but anyone eating raw hamburger meat or undercooked chicken I just don’t understand. Unless of course the beef is seared as a steak and then the raw beef is ground, then it is safe. Well, as safe as possible.

@Buttonstc the “pink slime” is exactly the same thing that they use in chicken and in beef for exactly the same reasons. It’s the perception that it’s gross that’s freaking some people out. It’s no different than watching your mom cook your favorite dinner for the first time and going, “Ew! You put that stuff in there??!”

And as to the rest of your post, that is exactly why the beef is safe. They’re inspected minutely and if anything is amiss they shut it down. I imagine there have been beef plants that provide beef to the grocery stores that have been shut down due to unsanitary conditions. And I imagine they clean up their act and open back up. I would imagine the fines would have been so steep that they would make it a point to keep to the standards.

And, as @JLeslie said, salmonella is a concern with ALL meat products, whether you buy them from McDonalds or from the grocery store, or even if you buy your own free-range, grain fed beef or whatever. That’s why you are supposed to cook it to a certain temperature.

The regulations are much, much stricter in restaurants than in your own kitchen, therefore the food is much safer.

As an aside…I love my steaks medium rare! That’s about as dangerous as you can get, aside from “rare” and “raw” if you’re worried about salmonella! Which just goes to show….

@Dutchess_III Steak medium rare is completely safe. Hamburger medium rare is the risk. Also ecoli is the main concern for beef, salmonella is poultry and eggs.

Steak IS beef. How is it safer from ecoli than hamburger or chickens?

The ecoli is on the outside of the steak, it doesn’t penetrate so fast. So when you sear the steak it kills the harmful bacteria. When you ground the raw beef for hamburger meat, all parts of the piece of meat are mixed together, so now all the meat is contaminated. That’s why some places have laws that hamburgers in restaurants must be served medium or more done, but you can still order a rare steak.

That makes sense.
Just use common sense when cooking the stuff! Most household kitchens aren’t as safe as most restaurant kitchens.

the “pink slime” is exactly the same thing that they use in chicken and in beef for exactly the same reasons. It’s the perception that it’s gross that’s freaking some people out

It freaks me the eff out @Dutchess_III because it’s made from the crap we throw away. Sinew is not edible. They break it down so that they have no waste. Customers buying ground meat are buying a good percentage of waste.

If we kill an animal on the farm, we wouldn’t give this garbage to an animal. Period.

Grinding beef isn’t difficult. Also, as @wilma pointed out above, if you choose a reputable butcher, you will not be purchasing pink slime.

Obviously you didn’t bother yourself with reading the full article so ill just give up on you for now. The entire point is that this meat is definitely not as safe as the packing plants want to convince the government and US.

But if you’re happy eating associated beef, by all means, be my guest.

Ill make other choices. If you really have no idea why a rare steak is far safer than a rare hamburger, then I’m wasting my time typing any further.

Accurate info is out there to answer Johns question. Its not rumors (like the worm nonsense) and if you choose to ignore it or look through rose colored glasses, well thats you’re right.

I’d rather pay the extra three cents per pound for a safer and more delicious product (and I’m on a fixed income) Everybody has a right to their own priorities, including you. So if you’re perfectly happy trusting our fabulous govt. (With congress people thoroughly beholden financially to these industrial farming conglomerates,) then just ignore all the accurate info in this thread. Just don’t expect any other sheeple to follow meekly in your footsteps.

EDIT: obviously I typed AMMONIATED beef, not associated.

Dawn Autocorrect thinks it’s a mind reader now. Ridiculous.

Damn Autoconnect.

@SpatzieLover They put cow muscles in their beef, too!!!!

Philadelphia schools plan on stopping pink slime in their school cafeterias. Most kids refuse to eat it. It smells like dog food!
NEWS FLASH: if you buy ground meat in those opaque packages in the cylindrical shape they have no pink slime in them. I bought meat in the see-thru package and it ruined my chili ! So we got a 5 lb package I just described and it’s fine. Well, as “fine” as ground beef can get. It’s like it used to be. I cut it in five sections and froze them separately.

You can’t SEE the pink slime in the meat! There isn’t that much in a batch!
School lunches, and jail lunches, are just nasty, period. And not just the beef.