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#1334902 - 03/26/12 02:09 PM
Up dated "Pink slime" critics
[Re: 123]
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123
Senior Member
Registered: 10/28/11
Posts: 845
Loc: From Ga.
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'Pink slime' maker suspends some plant operations
Published - Mar 26 2012 12:16PM EST
BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — The company that makes "pink slime" suspended operations Monday at three of four plants where the beef ingredient is made, saying officials would work to address recent public concern about the product.
Beef Products Inc. will suspend operations at plants in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kan.; and Waterloo, Iowa, according to Craig Letch, the company's director of food safety and quality assurance. The company's plant at its Dakota Dunes, S.D., headquarters will continue operations.
"We feel like when people can start to understand the truth and reality then our business will come back," Letch said. "It's 100 percent beef."
Federal regulators say the ammonia-treated filler, known in the industry as "lean, finely textured beef," meets food safety standards. But critics say the product could be unsafe and is an unappetizing example of industrialized food production.
The low-cost ingredient is made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts. The bits are heated and spun to remove most of the fat. The lean mix then is compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. The product is exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.
The result is a product that is as much as 97 percent lean beef, Letch said.
The product has been used for years, but it wasn't until earlier this month that social media suddenly exploded with worry and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools garnered hundreds of thousands of supporters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to allow school districts to stop using it and some retail chains have pulled products containing it from their shelves.
About 200 employees at each of the three plants will get full salary and benefits for 60 days during the suspension, Letch said. The plant in Amarillo produced about 200,000 pounds a day, while the Kansas and Iowa plants each produced about 350,000 pounds a day.
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"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my children may have peace."
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#1334959 - 03/26/12 10:38 PM
Re: Up dated "Pink slime" critics
[Re: twocats]
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Ayuveda
Senior Member
Registered: 04/05/10
Posts: 6367
Loc: Imagine
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...BEAUGH!
House Democrats lining up behind ban on 'pink slime' in school lunches
By Mike Lillis - 03/25/12
A growing chorus of House Democrats is urging the Obama administration to prohibit schools from serving "pink slime" to America's schoolchildren.
Dozens of Democrats have endorsed a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) contending the controversial substance — a mix of beef scraps treated with bacteria-killing ammonia and added to ground-beef products – is unfit for consumption in the nation's schools.
Saying they're concerned "about this byproduct being fed to our children," the lawmakers are urging Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack "to eliminate it from the National School Lunch Program."
Spearheaded by Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine), the letter was endorsed by 40 other Democrats, including Reps. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), John Lewis (Ga.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee.
The USDA this month announced it will offer schools the option of purchasing ground beef without the product, which is officially known as "lean finely textured beef."[nice eh?] The agency emphasized that it deems the product safe, but launched the new policy in response to concerns from numerous school districts.
"USDA only purchases products for the school lunch program that are safe, nutritious and affordable — including all products containing Lean Finely Textured Beef," the agency said in a statement announcing the change. "However, due to customer demand, the department will be adjusting procurement specifications for the next school year so schools can have additional options in procuring ground beef products."
But the Democratic critics say the "opt out" policy doesn't go far enough. Characterizing the product as "slurry meant for animal feed," the lawmakers are urging a complete ban in the nation's schools.
The lawmakers said they're concerned the USDA's policy will create a "two-tier" system under which the wealth of the school district will determine the quality of the food.
"If pink slime laced ground beef is less expensive to make, we are very concerned that lower funded districts will be forced to use it," the lawmakers wrote to Vilsack. "Creating a two-tiered school-lunch program where kids in less affluent communities get served this low-grade slurry is wrong."
Pingree and other critics of the product, manufactured by Beef Products, Inc., say it's made up largely of non-meat tissues, so it shouldn't be packaged as meat. Some critics also question the effectiveness of the ammonia treatments in killing e. coli, Salmonella and other meat-born pathogens.
The meat industry has defended its use of the product, arguing that lean finely textured beef is "100 percent beef product … that yields an additional 10-12 pounds of lean, nutritious beef" from every cow, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
"The production of lean finely textured beef prevents lean, nutritious beef from being wasted," NCBA President J.D. Alexander said in a recent statement.
The Democrats disagree, noting that several fast-food chains — including McDonald's and Burger King — have recently banned the substance in their hamburgers.
"If these fast food chains won't serve pink slime," the lawmakers wrote, "why should school cafeterias?"
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Sometimes, tear gas can make you see better.
-graffiti in Athens
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