Pink Slime

[PitPat]

Ginger, I know you put a lot of effort into running a test, but perhaps it is not out of the question for you to run another one. The problems with the last test were first a small sample size, but also you yourself were not tested.

Given your confidence in discriminating the slime enhanced hamburger, if you were able to pick the difference in several samples in a double blind test I'm sure many would be convinced, well maybe not Joey.

I also applaud the effort to quantify the hypothesis, but agree that the non-random sample size was far too small to draw any meaningful conclusions (I think it was like around 10 or 11 without looking back). Applying percentages as evidence to a number that small is a bit misleading.

Unfortunately to recruit enough random people to put it to the test would require at least thousands of dollars or a whole helluva a lot of free time.

 

[Myriad]

Sounds like you drank the vegan kool aid. Beef is incredibly nutritious by virtually all metrics. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/6193/2 Vitamins, minerals, fats, and high quality protein that aligns with the metabolic needs of the human body.

Nothing to do with veganism. Beef has nutrients but my point is it's not a necessity for nearly anyone* and not a good choice for most. If a cup of low-fat yogurt doesn't taste as good as you hoped for, you can still count the plusses, like helping your digestion and avoiding fats. If a salad is chewy and bland, it's still a healthy choice and you could probably stand to lose a few pounds. After all, if you were choosing based on taste alone, you'd be eating a doughnut or pizza or Strasbourg paté with truffle juice instead. Or a hamburger. But if the hamburger disappoints palate-wise, what's the upside? No reason to stick with it. Other proteins are cheaper and just as nutritious, and advised by e.g. the American Heart Association:

To get the nutrients you need, eat a dietary pattern that emphasizes:
fruits, vegetables,
whole grains,
low-fat dairy products,
poultry, fish and nuts,
while limiting red meat and sugary foods and beverages.

People eat beef for taste and, to some extent, tradition. The sellers screw with those at their own peril.


*I do know one exception, a man who has had most of his bowel resectioned due to inflammatory bowel disease. He eats 8 or more ounces of beef three times a day (usually steak rather than hamburger), cannot eat most vegetables (in the sense of, if he ate them it would put him in the hospital), is thin as a rail and struggles to maintain weight. So, there's your guaranteed-loyal customer base.

 

[phunk]

That doesn't answer the question, why does ground beef not need the ammonia when the LFTB does?

Because ground beef is kept refrigerated through the whole process.

The answer is because one is ground from meat that was butchered and handled in a relatively clean manner. The LFTB has a much higher rate of contamination because it is slaughterhouse floor waste, a little fact missing from all the industry propaganda.

Joey would have us believe it is collected neatly in little buckets rather than swept up off the floor. Slaughter houses move too fast to be bothered to use little buckets to hold the trim. If it were handled cleanly like ground beef is, it wouldn't need the ammonia or citric acid treatment.

Complete nonsense. LFTB is not made from "floor waste", it's made from properly handled trimmings that are not contaminated. The ammonium is just an extra precaution since the meat has spent time at a temperature that is neither refrigerated nor cooked.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Nothing to do with veganism. Beef has nutrients but my point is it's not a necessity for nearly anyone* and not a good choice for most. If a cup of low-fat yogurt doesn't taste as good as you hoped for, you can still count the plusses, like helping your digestion and avoiding fats. If a salad is chewy and bland, it's still a healthy choice and you could probably stand to lose a few pounds. After all, if you were choosing based on taste alone, you'd be eating a doughnut or pizza or Strasbourg paté with truffle juice instead. Or a hamburger. But if the hamburger disappoints palate-wise, what's the upside? No reason to stick with it. Other proteins are cheaper and just as nutritious, and advised by e.g. the American Heart Association:

No specific food is a necessity. But you will have a hard time finding any food source that is close to as nutritious as beef. You could argue for dairy, fish, and poultry but they contain comparable amounts of total fat to beef (although less saturated fat). I personally don't consider fat bad at all, but thats another point. For health reasons, I would gladly choose a mediocre burger patty over a pizza or doughnut (even though doughnuts are my favorite food).

When it comes to dairy. It's funny how those that choose low fat are at significantly greater risk for obesity than those that choose high fat. Think about that next time you eat that tasteless low fat yogurt.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23320900

 

[phunk]

That's not true, the refrigerated beef is brought up to 105F which is the same temperature as when it is killed,

Sterilization needs much higher temperature, and the time it takes is lengthened by lower temperatures. 30 minutes at 105F is going to incubate any contamination, not kill it.

 

[Prometheus]

It's the argument they made to the USDA to be exempt from having to label the product and it's the argument Joey makes. However, where do you draw the line? Some of that trim is likely all tendon and fat with no muscle meat whatsoever.

Could you please provide a citation. I've not seen anything like that. And some of any given pound of any ground beef is connective tissue and fat. Do you have any idea what percentage of LFTB is such?

Drawing the line at organs is obvious. What makes previously useable 'trim' beef vs 'other'? Does it need to contain some muscle meat?

If I specifically request a whole chunk of muscle meat ground to order, then that's what I expect to receive. If I pick up a wrapped package of generic "ground beef" then my expectation is that it it conforms with the USDA definition of same and that it's safe to eat if I handle it properly. If enough people want to lobby the USDA to change it's definitions, I have no problem with that. I don't feel any need to do so myself. If the definition does change, then I will expect ensuing products to meet the new definition.

What about the pieces that only contain connective tissues and cartilage? Do you think anyone is sorting the scraps and tossing the ones without red in them? Still beef? It's one thing to say there is connective tissue in beef. It's quite another to say that connective tissue is actual beef. There's a point where it is filler.

Any mass produced food product is going to contain some amount of by-product. Allowable amounts are generally published and readily accessible if you choose to look them up. If there's more than the allowed amount, then there's obviously a problem. Otherwise I expect purveyors to compete as I would any other business, by balancing costs versus revenues and supply versus demand.

Way to miss the entire point. It's not like you to do that.

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you. My interpretation of your point is that you think LFTB is different enough from "hamburger" that it should be required to be separately listed on the label. I disagree. If I am wrong in my interpretation of your stance, then I apologize.

Some years back a new processed product was added to hamburger. The industry lobbied and received a pass on having to label the additive. It turned out that additive made hamburger rubbery, the texture appealing to some while disgusting others.

There's all kinds of stuff in processed foods that doesn't have to be listed on the label. Of course, some people will be more or less concerned about the presence or absence of any given substance. I am not aware of a foolproof egalitarian formula for drawing a bright red line in any possible case, are you? But once a line has been drawn, absent any evidence of danger, it ought to be fairly difficult to force a change.

I don't care what the stuff is technically, it alters hamburger and it is an additive. It's not like one can buy (or sell) LFTB as hamburger.

In what way is it chemically different? Myriad made a point above about different textures of sucrose behaving very differently to each other in certain recipes. Do we require the baker to label whether his cakes are made with granulated or finely powdered sugar? I don't doubt you when you say LFTB noticeably (for you) alters the texture of groung beef. I just don't think that altered texture rises to the level of requiring a labeling change. To me, it tastes pretty much the same, it's nutritionally pretty much the same, I can obtain high-grade beef without it whenever I like. What's gained by forcing the change you desire? Seems to me like it would just force an unnecessary cost-hike on people who don't care. Those who do care can already go and pay more to avoid it.

Suppose we applied that same principle to cheese food. Why the special treatment, it is still cheese after all.

No, it's not. "Cheese food" is allowed to contain non-dairy ingredients. If they start allowing ground beef to contain chicken, then your analogy will be apt.

How about tuna, they add casein for some reason. Why label it, it's still tuna. There are valid analogies where additives are labeled.

Casein is milk protein. When you add it to the water the tuna is cooked/packed in, it creates MSG. I don't have a problem with this, as I purchase pure MSG in bulk and add it to nearly everything I cook, but some folks don't like the stuff for some reason. As far as I know, casein occurs naturally in the milk of mammals only. In fish, it is strictly an additive ingredient.

It is added to the burger. It is not burger on its own. It is beef only in that it comes from the cow, but it is not hamburger. It's added to the burger.

I'd be willing to grant that there is some gray area in the definitions, but I cannot agree with you outright.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ginger, I know you put a lot of effort into running a test, but perhaps it is not out of the question for you to run another one. The problems with the last test were first a small sample size, but also you yourself were not tested.

Given your confidence in discriminating the slime enhanced hamburger, if you were able to pick the difference in several samples in a double blind test I'm sure many would be convinced, well maybe not Joey.

It was a lot of work. Just because Joey and a few others are incalcitrant here is not reason enough for me to repeat the study.

I found my answer. All those years I was bummed at the burger texture that none of the grocery meat counter workers could answer, what was different, is resolved.

Joey has resentment the industry he was somehow connected to or interested in suffered. All I wanted was burger that tasted like the burger I grew up eating.

I have my answer. There's no confirmation bias about it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because ground beef is kept refrigerated through the whole process.

Complete nonsense. LFTB is not made from "floor waste", it's made from properly handled trimmings that are not contaminated. The ammonium is just an extra precaution since the meat has spent time at a temperature that is neither refrigerated nor cooked.

Not refrigerated? What?

I'm sorry but I call BS on this explanation. There's no extra precaution involved. The idea is ridiculous, all they would need are cultures to prove there is no need for extra decon.

Give it up.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Could you please provide a citation. I've not seen anything like that. And some of any given pound of any ground beef is connective tissue and fat. Do you have any idea what percentage of LFTB is such?

If I specifically request a whole chunk of muscle meat ground to order, then that's what I expect to receive. If I pick up a wrapped package of generic "ground beef" then my expectation is that it it conforms with the USDA definition of same and that it's safe to eat if I handle it properly. If enough people want to lobby the USDA to change it's definitions, I have no problem with that. I don't feel any need to do so myself. If the definition does change, then I will expect ensuing products to meet the new definition.

Any mass produced food product is going to contain some amount of by-product. Allowable amounts are generally published and readily accessible if you choose to look them up. If there's more than the allowed amount, then there's obviously a problem. Otherwise I expect purveyors to compete as I would any other business, by balancing costs versus revenues and supply versus demand.

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you. My interpretation of your point is that you think LFTB is different enough from "hamburger" that it should be required to be separately listed on the label. I disagree. If I am wrong in my interpretation of your stance, then I apologize.

There's all kinds of stuff in processed foods that doesn't have to be listed on the label. Of course, some people will be more or less concerned about the presence or absence of any given substance. I am not aware of a foolproof egalitarian formula for drawing a bright red line in any possible case, are you? But once a line has been drawn, absent any evidence of danger, it ought to be fairly difficult to force a change.

In what way is it chemically different? Myriad made a point above about different textures of sucrose behaving very differently to each other in certain recipes. Do we require the baker to label whether his cakes are made with granulated or finely powdered sugar? I don't doubt you when you say LFTB noticeably (for you) alters the texture of groung beef. I just don't think that altered texture rises to the level of requiring a labeling change. To me, it tastes pretty much the same, it's nutritionally pretty much the same, I can obtain high-grade beef without it whenever I like. What's gained by forcing the change you desire? Seems to me like it would just force an unnecessary cost-hike on people who don't care. Those who do care can already go and pay more to avoid it.

No, it's not. "Cheese food" is allowed to contain non-dairy ingredients. If they start allowing ground beef to contain chicken, then your analogy will be apt.

Casein is milk protein. When you add it to the water the tuna is cooked/packed in, it creates MSG. I don't have a problem with this, as I purchase pure MSG in bulk and add it to nearly everything I cook, but some folks don't like the stuff for some reason. As far as I know, casein occurs naturally in the milk of mammals only. In fish, it is strictly an additive ingredient.

I'd be willing to grant that there is some gray area in the definitions, but I cannot agree with you outright.

All that you ask evidence of is in the thread. Seriously dude, this is a reanimated carcass of a dead discussion. There's a lawsuit Joey reanimated the thing with, but the debate ran it's course.

 

[phunk]

Not refrigerated? What?

Huh? Where'd you get the "not", I said ground beef IS kept refrigerated. And LFTB is not, as you well know, it is heated to separate the beef from the fat, but it is not heated to the point of cooking. This increases the risk of contamination.

I'm sorry but I call BS on this explanation. There's no extra precaution involved. The idea is ridiculous, all they would need are cultures to prove there is no need for extra decon.

Give it up.

It is not BS, it is a fact. And it's not that complicated, I'm not sure why you don't understand it.

 

[tyr_13]

Sorry if someone has answered this somewhere, but why does the EU ban it? I've been looking and the reason Canada 'bans' it is that no one has had the specific use of ammonium hydroxide in meat products evaluated by Canadian health officials. They do allow it in other food processing.

I've found sites saying that the EU had banned it, but not why or a proper citation of the ban itself.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Huh? Where'd you get the "not", I said ground beef IS kept refrigerated. And LFTB is not, as you well know, it is heated to separate the beef from the fat, but it is not heated to the point of cooking. This increases the risk of contamination.

So your claim is, LFTB requires extra disinfection because beef is refrigerated and LFTB is not? Why then don't they just refrigerate it?

 

[Joey McGee]

Nothing to do with veganism. Beef has nutrients but my point is it's not a necessity for nearly anyone* and not a good choice for most. If a cup of low-fat yogurt doesn't taste as good as you hoped for, you can still count the plusses, like helping your digestion and avoiding fats. If a salad is chewy and bland, it's still a healthy choice and you could probably stand to lose a few pounds. After all, if you were choosing based on taste alone, you'd be eating a doughnut or pizza or Strasbourg paté with truffle juice instead. Or a hamburger. But if the hamburger disappoints palate-wise, what's the upside? No reason to stick with it. Other proteins are cheaper and just as nutritious, and advised by e.g. the American Heart Association:



People eat beef for taste and, to some extent, tradition. The sellers screw with those at their own peril.

This is baloney.

The only reason beef is considered more dangerous than other meats is because it has the highest amount of saturated fat. The consensus is that anything under 10% of calories coming from saturated is fine. The American Heart Association recommends 7%, and they say you can have a 6oz of red meat every day (which is an arbitrary number designed to help people who can't do math meet the 7% goal)

Warning people off red meat in general is ridiculous. But it does take the attention off of the topic of the thread...

 

[Joey McGee]

Sorry if someone has answered this somewhere, but why does the EU ban it? I've been looking and the reason Canada 'bans' it is that no one has had the specific use of ammonium hydroxide in meat products evaluated by Canadian health officials. They do allow it in other food processing.

I've found sites saying that the EU had banned it, but not why or a proper citation of the ban itself.

It's not true. It was either invented out of nothing or got started from this poorly written article

Not for nothing, they argue, has the stuff been banned in Europe, where mechanically-separated meat from cows and sheep has been prohibited since the era of BSE.http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-to-the-sour-taste-of-pink-slime-7593484.html

which is the reference on wikipedia, which is probably where Myriad read this. Clearly doesn't mean LFTB has been banned but that's good enough for wikipedia I guess. There's two references one goes to some community newspaper! Ridiculous...

 

[PitPat]

<Snipped> All I wanted was burger that tasted like the burger I grew up eating.

I have my answer. There's no confirmation bias about it.

That must've been a HUGE burger.

My taste buds have changed a lot as I've grown older, things taste differently than they used to. Granted, I haven't charted that progression of taste differential.

 

[Joey McGee]

Sterilization needs much higher temperature, and the time it takes is lengthened by lower temperatures. 30 minutes at 105F is going to incubate any contamination, not kill it.

You misunderstand me, when the cow is killed, the temperature of the meat is 100-105, that's the normal temperature of the beef so it can be brought up to it without changing the proteins. I would assume none of the bacteria is being killed.

The minimum doubling time in ideal conditions for e coli and salmonella is something like 20 minutes, I'm not sure how fast it starts after it's brought up to the danger zone from refrigeration. The entire process from refrigerated to being turned into lftb and frozen is under 30 minutes. Their claim that it is frozen before the bacteria can grow is entirely believable based on what I learned in high school

 

[phunk]

So your claim is, LFTB requires extra disinfection because beef is refrigerated and LFTB is not? Why then don't they just refrigerate it?

Is this some sort of april fool's joke, where you completely ignore the answer to your question that is right there in the post you quoted?

LFTB is heated but not cooked during the processing to separate the beef from the fat. You understand that heating it up is the opposite of refrigeration, right?

 

[tyr_13]

It's not true. It was either invented out of nothing or got started from this poorly written article which is the reference on wikipedia, which is probably where Myriad read this. Clearly doesn't mean LFTB has been banned but that's good enough for wikipedia I guess. There's two references one goes to some community newspaper! Ridiculous...

Yeah, I read the two Wikipedia sources and found them extremely lacking. Both articles say it is banned in Europe, but not why or source their information. The articles themselves are so lightweight that I don't just trust the assertion either, especially after finding out that the Canadian 'ban' isn't really a ban.

I thought someone might have found something real on that, but it might not even be true.

 

[Ryokan]

Why should anyone accept your anecdote/opinion/closely held belief? Shouldn't we go with the best available evidence instead?

I want to remind everyone again that Skeptic Ginger first complained that it made her hamburgers more gristly, while all evidence suggests that it should make it more tender.

 

[GlennB]

Yeah, I read the two Wikipedia sources and found them extremely lacking. Both articles say it is banned in Europe, but not why or source their information. The articles themselves are so lightweight that I don't just trust the assertion either, especially after finding out that the Canadian 'ban' isn't really a ban.

I thought someone might have found something real on that, but it might not even be true.

It's "sort of" true. Production of Desinewed Meat (DSM) was not exactly banned, but in the UK at least was suspended after EU action. DSM, as I understand it, is produced by putting bones - and their attached meat scraps - through a machine that grinds away the meat remains. Google images on desinewing machine will give you an idea how it works.

Another google on eu desinewed meat will return more information, including how the EU differentiates between DSM and MSM (mechanically separated meat). Briefly, MSM is a paste produced in high-pressure processes while DSM is produced in a low-pressure process and retains its fibrous nature.