Pink Slime in Your Children's Hamburgers

One of my favorite shows on TV is “Good Eats” with Alton Brown. If you have not seen the show, he focuses a half hour episode on a particular food product and he teaches you how to prepare certain meals from it along with interesting historical and scientific tidbits. Last weekend, I tuned into a show he did on hamburgers. He showed a very easy way to make your own burgers by purchasing fresh cuts of beef and grinding it yourself. If that sounds too time consuming, it isn't because you can easily do it with 10 pulses in the food processor. If you grind the beef yourself, you can feel much more comfortable about what is in your burger as opposed to purchasing the beef in an already ground up form.

The reason the above is important is because I have recently become revolted by the revelation that most ground beef products humans are eating (primarily from fast food restaurants) contain something known as “pink slime.” Pink slime (see above) is a nick name for a filler substance made from previously inedible cuts of beef that are made edible through a spinning separation process that involves treatment with water and ammonia. I used to add ammonia to a mop bucket and hot water when I mopped floors as a kid. It is not something that should ever be added to food. I used to think that I could trust the ingredients label on the package to know what was in my food, but as it turns out when pink slime is used, it is not listed and neither is the ammonia present. This is because the FDA does not view ammonia as an ingredient but part of a “process.” This makes no sense whatsoever because all cooking is a process and if a substance is being added to my food, especially if it is a chemical, I want to know about it. This is why I have dramatically changed my eating habits and that of my children after writing the blog entry called: Does Your Kids Cereal Contain BHT or BHA? – Mine Did.

Fortunately, many fast food chains now say that they are pulling “pink slime” from their food products. Unfortunately, many school cafeterias are still serving it to children and they use it as a filler as opposed to using originally edible meat. The FDA says pink slime is safe, but even if you believe that, why would anyone want to feed this to your children. Don’t get me wrong, enjoy a hamburger, but do it right and make sure the meat is actually real and do it yourself for the best results. The video below is really a must see for those who want to be educated more about this issue.