Have known about that for years...that is why we don't eat fast food hamburgers and have been grinding our own meats for sausages, burgers, meatloaf, etc. Nasty stuff. NancyLouise

ABC World News did a feature on it last evening.
That was the first I'd ever heard of it.
So I guess I've been living under a rock, too.

Not sure I'm brave enough to check out your link yet.

The ground meat I buy is ground in the store here.
I wonder if they use it,
And if they'd admit to it if they do.

Rusty

That photo has been making the internet rounds. Linda posted a link to it the other day on the turkey jerky niblets thread as part of the discussion about the ingredients in Bar-S hotdogs. "Mechanically separated meat" was listed as one of the ingredients there.

Eileen

NancyLouise, yep, us too. We make our own ground beef from chuck roast but only for the past 2+ years when we switched to grass-fed from WF. It's gotten to the point that I'm glad we eat so little beef - or meat of any type for that matter.

Sorry Eileen. I did not read that thread.

/t

Intersting that that's the same picture the Huffington Post had on their "mechanically separated poultry" article that Linda C linked on the Turkey Jerky thread. That article also said, "The USDA now requires foods with mechanically separated poultry to be labeled as containing mechanically separated chicken or turkey in their ingredients lists." I wonder if there's a similar requirement for beef.

Here is a link that might be useful: Huffington Post article

IIRC, The River Cottage Meat Book mentions something like this. (It's an excellent book that promotes humane and good meat practices, and rightfully deplores this sludge.) If on a label you see 'mechanically separated', what that means is that the slaughterhouse takes a pressure washer (food-grade, I presume) and blasts the carcass of the animal to dislodge any bits of meat adhering to the skeleton. The resultant slurry is used in sausages, etc.

Bon appetit!

FOAS,

According to MSNBC this afternoon, there is no label requirement so no way to know when you purchase ground beef if it contains Pink Slime.

I went to look at the other thread. I'll never eat another hotdog. :(

We made 5 lbs. of chicken/apple sausage about six weeks ago. I don't have the equipment to make links so we just package it in 1/2 lb. packages bulk. It's great & no pink stuff.

/t

Publix and Sweet Bay Super Markets state that they don't use pink slime.

Walmart has not answered. according to the news report I'm watching right now in Tampa.

ML

Here's an ABC News article, dated yesterday, that notes no label is required for beef products.

/t

Here is a link that might be useful: So what's in your meatloaf tonight??

Oh my... yes that is one more reason why I get my beef custom ground from our local organic farm. Yeach!

Alexa

I bought some chicken nuggets at TJs and it does not say mechanically separated on the list of ingredients, so I presumed it was chopped up "all white meat chicken with rib meat" as stated on the box. That stuff is just so gross.

Sometimes I ask the guy in the meat dept to grind a chuck roast for me and the difference from packaged ground beef is huge.

This is where I first saw it. Jamie Oliver got McDonalds to stop using it.

Here's it's called "meat fractions"- sounds yummo, eh? :-P
It's also used to boost the meat content in things like meat pies as while legislation dictates the minimum amount of meat which must be present in such products, they can't test for muscle meat. So some producers use some muscle meat and some meat fractions to get to the minimum meat content. That's why DH and I don't eat commercial meat pies and sausage rolls here :-)

Yesterday evening, ABC World News reported
That they contacted many large super market chains,
asking if they put 'pink slime'
In their ground beef.
Publix, Costco, HEB and Whole Foods
All say they do not use it.
The other stores contacted
had not responded yet.

Rusty

Rusty, that's good to know. Thanks for reporting back.

We used to purchase our ground beef from Whole Foods until we decided even that gave us concern & we started grinding our own. Publix, Costco, HEB are not in our area.

That stuff needs to always have a label. A big label!

/t

I buy ground meat only from a local grass fed producer or my store in town where I know they grind the meat there. A Walmart employee from the meat department told me that she won't eat the ground meat from Walmart. She says it's 14 days old when they get it and then they put chemicals on it to make it look good and they label it good for another 7 days.

And the same FDA/USDA who tells you pink slime is ok won't let you buy raw milk from a place you know and trust.

It is so easy to grind your own beef, with a food processor, or grinding attachment to a mixer, or even a hand-cranked meat grinder. For a pound of beef. Takes a couple of minutes with the hand cranker.

I prefer the texture of home ground beef. It is a little chunkier, less pasty than commercial ground beef. Of course you can overdo it with the food processor and make beef toothpaste.

There's just no reason to buy "ground beef", even from a trusted butcher or Whole Foods or "organic" ground beef (which cannot use beef slurry aka pink slime).

One time I saw a food label that included "mechanically separated chicken" and I totally freaked! I had all these horrible images in my mind of monstrous machines with razor-sharp blades actually ripping up poultry carcasses on a conveyor belt. But anyway, I wouldn't trust Walmart's ground beef not having pink slime in it. I won't buy any meat there at all because it comes from a gigantic distribution center where they shoot the meat up with a salt solution to preserve it. If you didn't know that, go check the labels and see how much salt is in it.

There's a petition to keep it out of school lunches, if anyone is interested:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-usda-to-stop-using-pink-slime-in-school-food

I'm not unilaterally against organ meat, but I draw the line at feeding children anything that 'still smells like ammonia' or that is routinely found to be infected with pathogenic E. Coli or Salmonella (to save three cents a pound, yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?pagewanted=all).

Thank you for posting those links, Jessica.

I signed the petition,
And I hope everyone else here does, too!

Feeding that stuff to children is just so wrong!

Rusty

Well, it appears that there is no need to get on my ever present soapbox about commercially available beef, is there? And I'm vindicated once more.

Of course, I grow my own and if I run out of ground meat I grind my own. I wouldn't eat commercially available hamburger for any reason, it's slimy and fatty and that's before the pink slime. Ugh.

Grind your own, it's fast and easy and no more expensive than pre-ground. Better yet, find a local farmer and buy yourself some beef.

Annie (proudly wearing my Tractor Supply t-shirt that says "I'm a farmer. Someone has to feed you people.")