I am disgusted with the reactions of theoretically sophisticated forum members to the term "pink slime". If you have been consuming ground beef from a source and found it acceptable or even tasty and have now found out it contains "pink slime" and changed your mind you remind me of someone who eats a dish and likes it until they are informed it contains anchovies or liver.
If the "pink slime" additive is healthy for you what difference should it make? Would this subject be hot topic if some PR activist had not thought up the term "pink slime". I am reminded of the campaign against farmed Atlantic salmon hybrids using the name "Frankenfish". Instead of an intelligent discussion of the pros and cons, we have a visceral reaction stirred up deliberately by negative marketing term. Those who accept the concept of eating the cow from nose to tail(now trendy) should welcome the conaervation of beef parts which would otherwise have gone to waste.
Talk about theoretically sophisticated! You're making a whole lot of assumptions. People don't typically appreciate being talked down to as if they are faux-sophisticates or children grossed out upon finding that they've eaten food they think they don't like. So, let me tell you my reasons for being against this stuff. I won't speak for others in these forums, but for me it has nothing to do with the term "pink slime." Would you prefer to call it "boneless lean beef trimmings"? That's a pretty outrageously misleading term. I'll just call it "stuff" from here on out.
What I react against is this: due to a profit motive that seeks to wring ever more out of the raw product, beef distributors began selling this stuff for human consumption whereas before it was deemed fit only for pet food. Does this seem like progress to you?
Also, what do you mean by "healthy"? You seem to suggest that healthy means "it won't cause you immediate or visible harm." Otherwise, I can't see how this stuff is healthy in the sense that it is good for your health, the commonly accepted defining of "healthy." Why is this stuff sprayed with ammonia? Because it is heated to 100F to loosen the "meat" so it can be centrifuged off. As I'm sure you're aware, 100F is prime growing conditions for bacteria. The ammonia is there because the meat is put well within the danger zone according to USDA recommended guidelines. But it's ok if its hidden in what is marketed as ground chuck or ground sirloin? Give me a break.
If this were done in a restaurant don't you think inspectors would be all over it? That's why the idea that this is anything like nose to tail eating is the most ridiculous red herring. This is not about taking some nice sweatbreads and lovingly preparing them. Do you really think nose to tail eating is anything like heating beef bones to 100F and centrifuging every last particle off of them, treating it with ammonia to kill the bacteria you just created, and then putting it into ground beef that is labelled as ground chuck or ground sirloin, or at the very least rests on the assumption that the only thing in the package is ground meat and not centrifuged ammonia treated meat paste? Searing some liver and serving it with onions is a far cry from this.
But how about this, let's just properly label the stuff as an additive, using a neutral term that doesn't conceal what the substance is but that represents it for what it is as objectively as possible (sorry, but this is not likely to be a positive term in that case). Then you can eat it all you want, and everyone who wants to can avoid it. Problem solved.
Also, as a sidenote, I haven't been eating this stuff for years. I've been grinding my own beef since I got my kitchenaid and when I do go to restaurants for a burger, the meat doesn't have an additives. But that's just me, and I'm lucky to live in a place where that's possible.
