{"id":5927,"date":"2012-03-13T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T03:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=5927"},"modified":"2015-12-07T11:52:52","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T16:52:52","slug":"no-pink-slime-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/no-pink-slime-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"No “Pink Slime” for Me!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been busy organizing, cleaning and packing\u00a0in preparation\u00a0for the big move, but I haven’t been completely oblivious to the news… like the recent ABC News report on “pink slime.” <\/a>According to\u00a0ABC\u00a0journalist\u00a0Jim Avila, “lean, finely textured beef” (aka “pink slime”) is a commonly used filler added to commercial ground beef. The catch is, because it’s “beef,” manufacturers and retailers are not required to note its presence on the label.<\/p>\n

As a Food Science type, I’m not nearly as grossed out by the stuff as – say – Jamie Oliver, who’s made quite a fuss about it<\/a>. On the one hand – yes, it’s aesthetically unappealing. On the other, however, I “get” why it exists… beef is a pricey commodity,\u00a0so\u00a0it pays to be able to efficiently\u00a0extract every last bit of edible meat from a carcass. Waste not, want not and all that. Assuming its as safe as the USDA claims, I don’t really have a problem with\u00a0pink slime\u00a0from a general health\/safety perspective.<\/p>\n

I do, however, have a “beef” with the stuff from a consumer perspective! Lean, high-quality ground beef isn’t cheap… and I would be pretty p***ed off to discover that\u00a0meat\u00a0I’m paying a premium price for\u00a0is being cut with cheap-o\u00a0recycled\u00a0beef paste (and in the ABC video below, Fred Meyer – one of the stores I shop at – refused to affirm or deny using it. Needless to state, this non-response doesn’t exactly inspire confidence). That’s cheating. If I buy 95% lean ground beef, I expect it to be composed of fresh, well-trimmed\u00a0meat pushed into the grinder\u00a0on one end, and sealed into a package\u00a0on the other – with no pet chow-quality meat by-products\u00a0added in the process.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

What to do under the circumstances? As I see it, there are two options: 1) buy ground beef at stores\/markets that don’t use\u00a0pink slime\u00a0(the video above mentions several possibilities); and 2) get a meat grinder and make my own ground beef from whole, lean cuts. For the record, I’m leaning towards option #2 – turns out that good quality countertop grinders aren’t that expensive! Gonna look into it as soon as we get settled in our new digs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been busy organizing, cleaning and packing\u00a0in preparation\u00a0for the big move, but I haven’t been completely oblivious to the news… like the recent ABC News report on “pink […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,23,28],"tags":[785],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5927"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10413,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions\/10413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}