"Pink Slime" in 70% of U.S. Ground Beef (Read 1364 times)


Feeling the growl again

    But "beef trimmings" seems awfully gentle compared to what the substance really is and how very highly processed it is, wouldn't you agree?  I acknowledge that beef is also processed, but not to that level.  "Beef trimmings" conveys to me stuff like skin, bones and fat -- the kind of detritus you'd have on your cutting board after processing your deer/elk.

     

    MTA: edited to "elk", as I doubt even spaniel can obtain a license to hunt elves.

     

    I don't care to get too deep into exactly how processed or not something is....personally I don't really count true ground beef as being processed, do you consider a diced celery stalk processed?

     

    It's not realistic for terms for everything to convey exactly how processed it is.  I've seen it as "processed beef trimmings" too.  Fact is, almost nobody will know what it means anyways.  But I do believe it is substantially different enough that the labeling should reflect the mixing of the two products, if they are put together.

    "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

     

    I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

     


    Why is it sideways?

      MTA:  And what Clive said.  Jeff I think we're just talking past each other here.  I'd agree with you that if the stuff (whatever you want to call it) is mixed in with ground beef the buyer should have the right to know. 

       

      Sweet.

       

      I was sorta freaking out because I felt like you and maybe Trent were trying to justify what seem to me a pretty prima facie bad practice. (I appreciate your sensitivity to the "media stake" in this, as well, and the "marketing" from the whistleblowers. Seems to me, I guess, that the ends of awareness justify the whistleblower's means in this case, though yeah it probably does depart from the truth to some extent.)

      bhearn


        MTA: edited to "elk", as I doubt even spaniel can obtain a license to hunt elves.

         

        You need a license???


        Why is it sideways?

          [My perspective on this comes from being married to a Paraguayan who can't stand to eat the meat here in the U.S. She can taste the industrialization of the meat in ways that my palate can't. Of course, all of these practices are coming to a third world country near you, as soon as they are outlawed here.]

           

          Also: having been a hunter in my youth, I actually find supermarket meat much more disgusting than butchered animals, but hey as they say experience can be transformative.

           

          Finally, I have good friends trying to do something about it (and also realizing how difficult farming can be)--for those in the Nashville area: http://www.ecotonefarm.com/Ecotone.html


          Prince of Fatness

            When Smith stepped down from the USDA in 1993, BPI’s principal major supplier appointed her to its board of directors, where she made at least $1.2 million over 17 years.

             

            Smith did not return ABC News’ calls for comment and BPI said it had nothing to do with her appointment. The USDA said while her appointment was legal at the time, under current ethics rules Smith could not have immediately joined the board.

             

            Everywhere you turn there is a back room, so it appears.

            Not at it at all. 


            Feeling the growl again

              [My perspective on this comes from being married to a Paraguayan who can't stand to eat the meat here in the U.S. She can taste the industrialization of the meat in ways that my palate can't. Of course, all of these practices are coming to a third world country near you, as soon as they are outlawed here.]

               

              Also: having been a hunter in my youth, I actually find supermarket meat much more disgusting than butchered animals, but hey as they say experience can be transformative.

               

              Finally, I have good friends trying to do something about it (and also realizing how difficult farming can be)--for those in the Nashville area: http://www.ecotonefarm.com/Ecotone.html

               

              The primary problem I have with supermarket meat is that they put in too much fat.  When I was a kid, every other year we butchered a steer for the freezer and they did it up the way we wanted it (leaner).  Since I was 12 years old I have gotten enough game annually that we eat mostly venison, although once I got married my wife does get beef at the store now and again for things.

               

              Steaks taste better with some fat in them though.  The last few years I've ground up entire deer rather than keeping any steaks, we use the ground venison but the steaks sit in the freezer for years as we don't like them as much as beef ones.

               

              It's also interesting to know if your meat comes from the US or not.  There is a LOT of stuff -- like some antibiotics and other drugs -- that have long been banned for use in beef cattle in the US, but can be used in Canada/Mexico.  And then that meat can be imported.

               

              MTA:  Also, I should clarify why I am always suspect of the motives of whistleblowers.  Some may not be aware that "whistleblower" is actually a legal term attached to a legal process.  Whistleblowers can stand to mage huge sums of money from their whistleblowing activities.   The process was set up to provide an important protection for people risking their careers to stop bad things, but the financial windfall can also be an incentive to overstate or otherwise misrepresent the magnitude or threat posed by whatever they are blowing the whistle on.

              "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

               

              I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

               


              Why is it sideways?

                The primary problem I have with supermarket meat is that they put in too much fat.  When I was a kid, every other year we butchered a steer for the freezer and they did it up the way we wanted it (leaner).  Since I was 12 years old I have gotten enough game annually that we eat mostly venison, although once I got married my wife does get beef at the store now and again for things.

                 

                Steaks taste better with some fat in them though.  The last few years I've ground up entire deer rather than keeping any steaks, we use the ground venison but the steaks sit in the freezer for years as we don't like them as much as beef ones.

                 

                It's also interesting to know if your meat comes from the US or not.  There is a LOT of stuff -- like some antibiotics and other drugs -- that have long been banned for use in beef cattle in the US, but can be used in Canada/Mexico.  And then that meat can be imported.

                 

                Yes. Our family most hunted fowl: geese (when they used to come this far south), ducks, and dove and occasionally grouse. I've never fired a rifle, only my 12 gauge. I sill go hunting occasionally because it's my favorite way to spend time with my grandfather (who is 88 and can still shoot!) So, I haven't eaten much venison. 

                 

                You get much leaner meat actually in South America and I suppose as to whether fattier meat tastes better, this is a matter of your own taste. The biggest difference in meat is in the poultry down there. Have you ever eaten a chicken that grew up running around and eating bugs and stuff? Totally different meat, and it's kind of shocking.

                 

                It's funny because in South America, they would never dream of putting any sauce on the meat: A1 or anything like that. Only salt. Here we season the crap out of the stuff. Wonder why.

                 

                Little known fact: the vast majority of Paraguay's meat supply goes to Russia and is canned. The cows eat the same stuff as the famed Argentinean beef, and it tastes just as good, but there is no world market because of, well, poor marketing. Smile

                LedLincoln


                not bad for mile 25

                  I grew up raising cattle.  Neither we nor anyone else I know fed cattle materials originating from cattle.  I'm pretty sure that is illegal since the mad cow scare; I am positive it is illegal in Europe.  Our cattle were fed hay and corn silage, nothing nefarious.  I don't ever recall forcing cattle to eat anything either.  Like people on the couch with a bad of potato chips, put a cow in front of food and it will pretty much eat as much as it can.

                   

                  Farming, in general, is subjected to a lot of misinformation and downright urban legends created by people who don't have any experience with it.  I especially liked the recent bit about PETA or whomever stopping McDonalds from buying from pork producers who keep sows in restrictive crates.  Apparently they are unaware that while a mother pig becomes very protective of her piglets after about a week, before that she has no issues with lying down on them and squashing them alive.  If there are other pigs around they will eat the piglets.  Raising pigs without crates seems awfully cruel to me, having actually participated in the process.  There was nothing worse than not getting a sow into a crate before she delivered and having to go into the pen and clean up the carnage.

                   

                  I'm not sure what you are looking for in a "varied" diet...beef you buy from cattle out West are termed "grassfed" and that really is all they eat.  Seems like every square inch of Montana (game refuges and all) is pastured.  Just once I'd like to hunt elk where I don't have to worry about stepping in cow pies.

                   

                  The elk out west probably eat a bit greater variation in vegetation than the cattle but not much.  The deer in the midwest eat EXACTLY what the cattle do, corn, hay and soybeans.  I know because they cost us thousands of dollars per year and eat anything withing 30 yards of a woodline down to the dirt.  Deer/elk and produce a naturally leaner meat (they don't marble), but there is nothing natural about the amount of fat on a deer in the Grain Belt...way more than the species is supposed to have.  Of course since I control what goes in the meat grinder I trim off as much fat as I can and throw it away.

                   

                  The most nefarious product I can remember feeding cattle is Lucky Charms.  Our cousins used to get the seconds of the marshmallows by the semi trailer full and they'd feed them to the cattle.

                   

                  I think pork by-products are still finding their way into pig feed.  Fattier feed makes the pigs grow faster.  Yes, we're more careful about beef, due to BSE.  Didn't that take a decade or so before they figured out what was causing it?

                   

                  The deer and elk we ate (and still eat, to a lesser degree), fed on mountain grasses, tree shoots, etc.  When the snowpack was high, they would occasionally come down to the lower elevations for a treat of the ranchers' baled mountain hay or alfalfa.

                   

                  We eat a lot less meat now.

                   

                  A semi full of Lucky Charms marshmallows.  Wow.


                  Feeling the growl again

                    You need a license???

                     

                    Yeah.  The rebar is hard on the burger grinder too.

                    "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                     

                    I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                     


                    Feeling the growl again

                      I think pork by-products are still finding their way into pig feed. 

                       

                      A pig will eat anything you put in front of them.  That is why the serial killer in Washington had a pig farm.  Ever seen the movie "Snatch"?

                       

                      That said, we did not feed animal products to the pigs either and we were a much larger hog operation than beef (to this day I cannot stand the smell of those wretched animals).  They ate corn. 

                       

                      However, if one died and you didn't see it and pull it out quickly enough....

                      

                      This was 15 years ago now, but I can't say I'd ever heard of the practice then.  Perhaps elsewhere but when I heard they actually had to ban the practice it was a talk in the (farming) community because nobody had ever heard of it being done.

                       

                      I don't know, perhaps it's a geographical thing?

                      

                       

                      And yes, having hunted deer out west I can agree that deer in the mountains vs deer in farmland are two totally different things.  Like Jeff was saying about free-range chickens living off the land, you really can tell the taste difference in an animal depending on what it was fed and where.  For example my uncle once shot a deer in a cedar swamp up north....one could not even be in the kitchen when the meat was cooking!  It smelled like a bad spruce candle....and tasted like a martini.

                      "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                       

                      I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                       

                        Blame those damn Expedia lobbyists!

                        "I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

                        -- Dick LeBeau

                          Will my omnivority survive this thread?

                           

                          I mean probably, but, yuck.  

                           


                          "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus


                          Feeling the growl again

                            Will my omnivority survive this thread?

                             

                            I mean probably, but, yuck.  

                             


                             

                            Hah.  The whole reason I never get to run Monkey is because that is the prime weekend to be out filling my freezer.  I fill 3 family's freezers most years, actually.

                            "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                             

                            I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                             

                            LedLincoln


                            not bad for mile 25

                              Well, here is another example of misconceptions in agriculture.  The meatpacking industry has nothing to do with rural interests and farmers.  Farmers hate meatpackers, for the most part.  Most of the markup in the meat value chain goes to meatpackers....farmers get paid commodity prices and much smaller margins.

                               

                              Farmers don't really give much care to whether meatpackers get to sell their beef trimmings or not.

                               

                              Yes.

                              WhoDatRunner


                              Will Crew for Beer

                                Yeah.  The rebar is hard on the burger grinder too.

                                 Dude, that's a gnome.

                                 

                                MTA: They taste nothing like elves.

                                Rule number one of a gunfight, bring a gun. Rule number two of a gunfight, bring friends with guns.