Pink Slime and your Family's Health

Meat packages in a Roman supermarket. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Just when you thought that you've heard everything about the chemicals, dangerous preservatives, cancer causing food coloring and contamination that our food is exposed to-wham!  Along comes the media to uncover some  gross and disgusting practice that is slowly killing the average American while lining the pockets of food and meat manufacturers. Is there anything that won't be done for money?

The latest menace to our health is pink slime.  Yuck. The media has informed us that it is being served to kids in school. And over 70% of chopped meat sold in supermarkets contain it.  This stuff sounds like something out of a sci-fi horror flick.

 What is pink slime? This post will attempt to answer that question.

Pink Slime-what is it?

I think that most of us know that when you purchase chopped meat, you are getting a concoction of ground animal parts, including the spine and other unsavory parts of the animal.  Probably if we knew the whole story, we'd swear off meat-forever. Anyway, in order to maximize profits, companies are looking for ways to cheaply expand the product by adding beef scraps and tissue meat that is a high contamination risk for E. coli and salmonella.  In order to cut that bacterial risk, they treat the meat with a solution of ammonium hydroxide to kill off bacteria. (It amounts to eating Windex). Sad thing about it is that the FDA doesn't even test the meat for safety since it believes that this solution effectively kills bacteria. And, since it is not a meat ingredient, it doesn't have to be even listed as an ingredient in the meat. The formal name is "Lean Meat trimmings." And, quite to the contrary, studies are finding that the meat is not bacteria free as previously thought.

What can you do?

There are a number of petitions available online to tell the USDA to stop buying such pink slime for school lunches.   Also, interested and concerned individuals can joim Chef Ann Cooper's National School Food Challenge which  pledges to provide healthy foods.

Other options include buying meat from local butchers and farms.  Shop organic and avoid purchasing meat from supermarkets at all costs.


Sources:

"Why are kids getting pink slime for lunch?" www.mercola.com