Entry #9. Pink Slime.

I am completely disgusted after watching the short clip I have inserted above. This is just absolutely ridiculous and corporations using this "pink slime" should be utterly ashamed of themselves. In a previous blog post I discussed the fundamentals of the movie FRESH- in regards to avoiding industrialized foods and improperly treated meat/crops. This just flairs up more of my strong opinion on avoiding meat altogether in the United States- even if it doesn't come from a fast food chain.

Pink slime is an expression to describe a product in the meat industry called "lean finely textured beef" and/or "boneless lean beef trimmings".  It has been used as a food additive in a lot of our country's ground beef. A huge machine heats and removes fat from the beef trimmings; in this process, the product is ultimately exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas and citric acid to kill the bacteria.

I can't believe that companies would be willing to put unnatural chemicals into their food products in order to make more money for themselves. It absolutely blows my mind that the USDA consider this product safe for human consumption. Ammonium hydroxide is the same chemical in the cleaning products you would use at home- why would anyone want that inside of their body?!

Thank goodness for Jamie Oliver, a chef, whose goal was to show the world the truth about what the food industry was allowing to happen to meat products. At one point in time school cafeterias and restaurant chains were serving this pink slime in their meals. How much of this pink slime do you think the children of this day-in-age have ingested with happy meals and daily school lunches?

This next video I inserted, is the man Jamie himself showing a group of children ultimately how pink slime is made. Watch how he cuts the great pieces of meat and explains to the kids that those are the most expensive and best parts. Then he shows them the carcass that remains and all of the children can't help but to be disgusted. They all back away from him as Jamie holds the gross looking remains in the air. However, it is insane to see the kids reaction after blending the poor cuts of meat up and adding the hypothetical "additives" to enhance them. The children are actually willing to eat the garbage after Jamie disguises it to make it look as if it is a good piece of chicken.

This just proves the lack of knowledge the world has on what is really inside of our food. And specifically, children, who are completely unaware of the difference because the two different cuts of meat that can be made to look, smell and even taste the same. The bad cuts and scraps of meat used to be made for dog food and other animal feed because their stomachs could handle it better than humans. Personally, I wouldn't even want my dog to ingest this pink slime and feel like it should be illegal to sell in our country. What do you think?