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[Lord Dullard]

This has been on the news lately, but I'm sharing it because it seems like the responsible thing to do. The more people that know about this kind of crap being snuck into our food supply due to government corruption and general human indecency, the better.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/70-percent-of-ground-beef-at-supermarkets-contains-pink-slime/

Check out the video.

Pink Slime: In ur school, feeding ur kidz.

http://www.local12.com/mostpopular/story/USDA-To-Buy-Pink-Slime-For-School-Lunches/SlcrD6Opk02wrirK4Nt62A.cspx

[Flying Dice]

Sounds tasty. Time to go buy some ground beef.

[Lord Dullard]

Yep. The best part is how that former government official got a huge paycheck and a fancy job because she did favors for the 'meat' industry...

[Levi]

Hmm.  I wonder if they do this in Canada...

[Bauglir]

I... actually don't have a problem with this. Call me crazy, but it's still muscle tissue from a cow. It's beef. It's of the lowest possible quality and you ought to see a price decrease as result, and I'll wager there's some corruption going on in that regard, but in principle I don't see why this meat is any worse than an easier muscle to harvest. Of course, this probably also drives up the cost of pet food, which is another problem, but it's also possible that it's a more efficient use of an animal.

[ToonyMan]

So the real outcry is how they're cheating the economy and not that it has any dangerous health effects on the human body?  Well I guess that's better than the other way around.

[Levi]

Hmm.  I wonder if they do this in Canada...

Actually, it looks like my meat is still good. 
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Pink+slime+used+Canadian+beef+says+industry+video/6278498/story.html

[kaijyuu]

Really now, there's only three things that matter: Taste, texture, and nutritional value. Is this diminishing any of the three?


It just seems like another body part added to the many body parts constituting "ground beef." Whether it's a butt muscle or a ligament being eaten, it doesn't seem all that different to me. I'm fine for requiring labels for this stuff though (you should be able to know what you're eating, after all).

[Bauglir]

Yeah, I'd also be happy with a more detailed labeling system, but you'd probably have to expand it to listing all particular cuts of beef included in pretty much anything. Not exactly impossible, but it does require a lot of documentation that people are going to complain about, including customers who don't want to learn what each cut actually is (not that they actually will, or will care in the vast majority of cases, but they'll still complain). And McDonald's will probably have your head on a pike. And, let's be honest here, grind it up and serve it to a customer for 99 cents.

Heck, textured vegetable protein as a beef extender is a bigger adulteration as far as I'm concerned, and even that's only because it has a slightly different nutritional profile from beef. For taste and texture, particularly in a mass-produced food, you can have a 1:2 ratio of TVP to beef with no discernible differences, IIRC. Though I don't believe it works quite as well in patty form, and does have to be appropriately labeled in the ingredients list. And, to be clear, I'm bringing this example up to express how trivial I find the use of this "pink slime" (which is a loaded term, and kind of ridiculously so) to be.

[IronyOwl]

Not surprising on either count. Rampant fraud, handwaving, and obvious conflicts of interest are pretty par the course for government regulation agencies.


That said, I find it hard to believe most people didn't assume ground beef wasn't laden with fat in the first place. I mean, have you ever fried some up?

Call me crazy, but it's still muscle tissue from a cow. It's beef.

It's not though; it's fat tissue being labeled as muscle tissue.

You're correct that it's still beef in that it comes from a cow, however.

[Bauglir]

Oh, it's rendered adipose tissue. Missed that. Then yeah, it should really be labeled as beef trimmings or something. Still not a huge deal, but I suppose it depends on how beef is legally defined, which is a thing I don't know. 'S less an issue with government and more an issue with government being corrupted by private influence, near as I can tell, but that's probably a debate for another thread, and one largely based on opinion.

[Lord Dullard]

It's not though; it's fat tissue being labeled as muscle tissue.

You're correct that it's still beef in that it comes from a cow, however.

This. I think I'm also pretty grossed out by the fact that these trimmings are picked up off of the floor and then processed.

Really now, there's only three things that matter: Taste, texture, and nutritional value. Is this diminishing any of the three?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/is-pink-slime-in-the-beef-at-your-grocery-store/

The company calls the final product “Finely Textured Lean Beef.” It is flash frozen and boxed. Foshee says it is more like gelatin and not nutritious as ground beef because the protein comes mostly from connective tissue, not muscle meat.

Yes.

[GlyphGryph]

This reminds me of the guy who tried to gross out a bunch of kids into demanding better school lunches by walking them through the process of how a chicken nugget was made.

Except that they were all quite eager to eat the chicken nuggets that resulted. The guy seemed almost flabbergasted.

I honestly don't see the point. People LIKE fat. If its worse healthwise, I don't see how its any worse than any of the other crap they load student lunches up with. I don't see how its any worse than corn sugar.

I - like a large portion of the population - have absolutely no idea what the issue is here.

[EmperorNuthulu]

Wait a minute... what if the people who eat this suddenly gain traits like slimes from video games... and start splitting... increasing the population! Then what if they turn corrosive and melt the non slime people! Gentlemen, too the doomsday bunkers!

[Cthulhu]

I don't eat meat anyway, but was anyone actually surprised that non-nutritional food* product was being added to the stuff they ate?

If it turns out there's actual negative effects from it that's one thing, but I'll only accept evidence of that from proper sources.