The Real Truth about Pink Slime
What is in a name? How many of you were stuck with a label or nickname as a kid? Was
the name cute to you, or was it painful? William Shakespeare may not have spent a single day on
a working farm, but in Romeo and Juliet he wrote that “a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.” So it is with pink slime, but can names lead to hurtful damage? That is a question that
has been raised in the beef industry recently with the issue of pink slime.
Hi, I am LaMour Binger and I am a member of the H/T FCCLA chapter. I have lived on
a farm near the small town of Bonilla, South Dakota, my entire life. My Dad along with my
Grandpa, my brothers and I, all raise cattle. When I first heard about the pink slime issue, I was
surprised to hear that additives were being added into the ground beef from our cattle. It made
me sick to think about what was being added. However, I eventually learned the truth about what
pink slime really is and how it is not what people make it seem.
The term pink slime was first publically used in an ABC news network report involving
the beef industry. It originated as a personal email between Carl Custer, a scientist who worked
for food safety inspection service, and a colleague as a slang term for “lean finely textured beef”.
Pink slime is actually the separated and cleaned beef products that are known as lean finely
textured beef, or LFTB. The product comes from the beef carcass that goes through a process to
remove the fine textured meat from the bones. It is treated with ammonia to ensure that bacteria
are killed. This lean finely textured beef is then mixed with other ground beef, resulting in a
lower fat content. The use of this lean finely textured beef or, as ABC describes it, “pink slime,”
eliminates the waste of good safe beef in order to keep an overall leaner, and healthier beef
product.
Lean finely textured beef is used as a filler to reduce fat content in ground beef. Less than
fifteen percent of lean finely textured beef is added in each package of ground beef. The use of
lean beef eliminates the waste of valuable, lean, healthy, and safe beef by the use of technology.
It is twenty percent of the lean ground beef from a steer, and therefore logic says that without it,
some lean ground beef would cost the consumer twenty percent more. It has just been heated up
to approximately one hundred degrees, sent through a centrifuge, to get rid of excess fat. It is
then treated with ammonia to kill off any bacteria it may still possess, next it is flash frozen and
packaged into cubes to be shipped to ground beef packaging plants.
When lean finely textured beef is introduced as pink slime, the product may sound
disgusting and unhealthy. However, when called lean finely textured beef, most people would
have no problem eating it in a hamburger. Seventy percent of the United States has already eaten
ground beef that contains the so called “pink slime.” Back in 1974 ammonia was certified safe
for the use of food products. It has been used in many different food-making processes including
the process of making cheese. With a name like pink slime no one wants to eat it; but before
when it was called lean finely textured beef, nobody had any problems eating it. The packages
are not labeled when they contain pink slime. Lean finely textured beef is actually very nutritious
and healthy; but most people just hear the name, pink slime, and tend to steer away from it,
thinking it’s unhealthy some consumers have become irrational and have stopped purchasing
ground beef in stores.
The name change has prompted huge numbers of grocery stores to stop buying ground
beef that contains lean finely textured beef. Parents have been asking to get the filler out of every
school lunch. Many schools have agreed to stop using it, which causes the demand to lower. It is
not unsafe; it is just as healthy as ground beef after it has been treated with ammonia to kill
bacteria. After hearing the name and the fact that it was once only used in dog food, people have
turned away from having it in their food. The process of using lean finely textured beef in ground
beef was approved back in 2001 by a USDA health scientist, JoAnn Smith.
If the process of lean finely textured beef were to go away, 850 million pounds of ninetyfive percent lean ground beef would be gone; and we would need more than 1.5 million head of
cattle each year to meet the demand for ground beef. Doing away with lean finely textured beef
would be a waste of valuable beef that we need in our country. It would damage our economy,
and cattle owners around the US would be hurt by the demand of it lowering.
It has even became a major issue in the public news as ABC news network has been
slaying the name of lean finely textured beef by calling it pink slime. A South Dakota beef
producer has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC for unfairly calling lean finely textured beef
“pink slime.” Beef Products Inc. has filed a lawsuit in a South Dakota court for 1.2 billion dollars
under a state law that gives corporations the right to sue when their products have been
criticized. Beef Products Inc. suspended three of their four plants after the demand for lean finely
textured beef dropped to an all time low due to the on-line media campaign to get it removed
from all school lunches. In the lawsuit several comments made by ABC reporters and other have
been called defamatory. Beef Products Inc. is also suing ABC for saying that the company isn’t
actually making beef but instead is just using a waste product coming from the left overs of the
cattle carcass.
Currently, ABC has asked a South Dakota federal judge to dismiss the 1.2 billion dollar
lawsuit. Beef Products Inc. has argued that ABC violated South Dakota’s Agricultural Food
Products Disparagement Act. ABC says that the law only says that it can be made if the safety of
the product has been questioned. ABC has stated that safety was not the issue and it stated that it
said pink slime is safe to eat.
FCCLA teaches youths how to eat right and make healthy choices through the Body
Program. When consumers are aware of how lean finely textured beef is used to lower fat
content they can choose a healthier ground beef options without concern. In our FACS Class we
learned how consumers need to know all the facts about a product to make an educational
decision. FACS class encourages wise consumerism through programs especially in the
Consumer Clout Unit. Through the program, youth learn how to use critical thinking skills to
evaluate their sources of information.
I believe doing away with pink slime would be a waste of good beef and would have a
major impact on the economy. The price of ground beef would go up and the demand for it
would lower, resulting in cattle owners lowering the rate of cattle produced. It would affect
everyone that owns cattle, large or small businesses. When our farm production goes down,
prices go up, hurting the whole community, state, and nation. We need every piece of beef that
we can get in order to feed everyone in the United States. It is healthy and an efficient way for
our communities to be using food.
Pink slime, like Shakespeare’s rose, is more about labeling than it is about nutrition, and
my guess is Shakespeare would have enjoyed a good quarter pounder just as much as the rest of
us, because he, like other educated consumers knows that “a rose by any other name would smell
as sweet.”