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Nati Harnik / AP file
A sample of lean finely textured beef, also known as 'pink slime,' is displayed at the Beef Products Inc. plant in South Sioux City, Neb., where the product is made. USDA officials say several meat producers have asked to indicate use of the product on package labels.
As consumers clamor for more transparency about the beef product dubbed “pink slime,” federal agriculture officials have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels.
That means grocery shoppers soon could know whether some packages of ground beef contain the ammonia-treated meat that has been at the heart of a controversy that has shuttered plants, scuttled jobs and sparked uproar over the contents of the nation’s hamburgers.
Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety branch, said Tuesday he could not identify the firms that sought labeling changes, or even say how many were involved. He only confirmed that the agency has received voluntary requests from beef firms to change their labels to indicate it contains lean finely textured beef, or LFTB.
“We’ve determined that such requests will be approved,” Fillpot said.
At least one big beef maker, Cargill Inc., said that firm officials had requested the labeling changes, in part to address the groundswell of consumer concerns.
“Voluntary labeling is one of the options we are looking at, although no final decision has been made to do this,” said Mike Martin, a Cargill spokesman. “We will also be working with our customers to gather their input to collectively reach mutually acceptable options.”
One advocate who helped launched the controversy said it’s about time consumers' wishes were considered.
“If the product had been labeled from the start, I doubt we’d see anything like the consumer backlash that the media has stirred up in the past few weeks,” said Bettina Elias Siegel, author of the blog “The Lunch Tray,” which helped force agriculture officials to allow schools to opt out of using the beef byproduct in school lunches.
At the heart of the controversy has been the use of an estimated 700 million to 800 million pounds of LFTB, which is added to about 10 billion pounds of ground beef consumed in the U.S. each year, according to the American Meat Institute.
It consists of lean beef carcass trimmings, which have been separated from fat and treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli O157 and salmonella, before being ground, compressed into blocks and quick-frozen. Cargill treats LFTB differently, using citric acid to change the acidity of the beef to make it inhospitable to pathogens.
Beef Products Inc., the South Dakota firm whose founder, Eldon Roth, created and patented the ammonia process, provided msnbc.com with records that they said showed that raising the pH of the beef from about 5.7, its natural level, to a pH of 8.5 reduces E. coli to undetectable levels.
But the product was dubbed “pink slime” in a 2002 email by a USDA microbiologist who found it distasteful. Concern was raised again recently when celebrity chef Jamie Oliver campaigned against the product being served in school lunches.
Combined with Siegel's quest to get the product out of schools, the current controversy led big U.S. supermarkets, including Safeway Inc., Kroger Co. and Supervalu Inc. to pledge to stop using the products.
It forced BPI to halt production at some of its plants last week, and this week forced another processor, AFA Foods, into bankruptcy.
That’s despite protests from governors of beef-producing states who say the LFTB has been maligned, and top food safety experts, who say that BPI’s product is safe.
“I think their process was validated pretty well,” said Gary Acuff, a microbiologist and director of the Center for Food Safety for Texas A&M college of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Some experts, such as Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor at the University of Minnesota, say LFTB may actually make ground beef a little better.
“If 750,000,000 pounds of relatively safe protein is going into hamburger, it’s got to beat having the same amount of raw product going in,” Osterholm said in an email to msnbc.com.
Much of the contention in scientific circles has centered on whether the ammonia-treated product should actually be considered meat, or whether it should be considered and identified as an additive, said Randall K. Phebus, a professor of food safety and defense at the Food Science Institute at Kansas State University.
Others have urged that labeling products with LFTB should be mandatory. It's not clear whether voluntary measures would provide consumers with adequate information, because some companies might choose to label their products while others would not, some experts suggested. The USDA agreement was first reported on the meat industry online site Meatingplace.com.
Fillpot, of the USDA, said he couldn’t discuss whether the agency was considering making it a requirement. Beef producers who received USDA approval could start changing the labels immediately, agency officials said.
Industry and government leaders have an obligation to help families make informed choices, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and a contributor to msnbc.com.
"If consumers want to know information about the food they or their children eat, then manufacturers and grocers ought to find ways to get that information to them," he said, noting it could come through labels, websites, toll-free numbers, pamphlets or even signs at stores. "I believe there is a fundamental right to know all you wish to know about what you eat."
The solution to current crisis will require extraordinary levels of transparency, noted both Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer, and Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. Both have urged BPI and others to be as public as possible with their processes, even posting data online that describe how food is processed, produced and handled and the results of safety tests.
On Tuesday, BPI officials appeared to agree with at least part of that, saying that the voluntary labeling change could help rehabilitate the industry’s beleaguered image.
“[It] will be an important first step in restoring consumer confidence in their ground beef,” BPI spokesman Craig Letch wrote in an email to msnbc.com.
Taste tests consistently show that consumers prefer hamburger that contains BPI’s treated product, Letch added.
“We feel this development will allow more customers to provide options to consumers and pave the way for BPI’s lean beef to reestablish its place in the market.”
Related stories:
'Pink slime' panic grows online: Are we overreacting?
McDonald's drops use of gooey 'pink slime' in hamburger meat
Leave a Comment:
You have to ask, where was the USDA all these years that pink slime was being slipped into our meat products without our knowledge? Makes you wonder what other little surprises are out there? Sheep eyeballs in my canned clam chowder? The real pink slime are the people who decided to use this nasty product as a way to improve profits over people's health. The USDA should pass regulations so that all fillers of any kind must be clearly indicated on the product labels. That way if a producer slips some saw dust filler into my bread, it must be on the label so I know what I am eating.
Can you point to a single incident that anyone's health was acutally harmed by eating what you describe as a "nasty product"? Have you ever seen how meat is prepared in a slaughterhouse? It's not like they scrub up, hoist the cow onto a sterile operating table and start cutting away with a nice, clean scalpel. There is a reason it is called "butchering".
@TexasWarren how would anyone be able to pinpoint whether or not the problem was with the pink slime? If it is 15% of the overall product, you cannot say definitively which part caused the problem. There are definitely instances of people having food poisoning after eating beef. How can anyone know for certain which part caused it?
Two pounds of ground beef, no amonia or ground entrails please.
Are you kidding me?
I just went back to vegetarian. Nothing against eating animals and I like the flavor. But in cutting calories, you can eat mountains of veggies compared to a baseball sized steak. That being said, THEY'VE BEEN MIXING LIGAMENTS, CARTILAGE, AND NO TELLING WHAT ELSE TREATED WITH AMONIA INTO OUR HAMBURGER MEAT???
Why not just call it Soilent Green?
Don't know what the fuss is about. We've been eating it for decades. Just another ploy by the liberal media to turn us all into broccoli munching veg-heads. Why doesn't McDonald's disclose what's in their Chicken McNuggets? The fact it uses an ingredient you use to caulk your windows should give you a clue...
Texas, and you know this how?
I think their process was validated pretty well,” said Gary Acuff
You eat it if you like it.........this isn't a 3rd world country althought you illegal lovers want it to be.
pink slime is the tip of the iceberg. Now lets go after MSG and its addictive derivitives that corporate america is using to poison our food supply and cause an obeisity epidemic.
They need to label it "lean, finely textured beef AND AMMONIA." Disgusting.
Just another thought here...Some folks are calling for full disclosure of what goes into food, and of how it's prepared.
Do these men and women realize the monumental, and unnecessary, task they are demanding. Literally tens of thousands of chemicals, fillers, etc, are used for food production. They are completely safe. Every one of them.
It isn't until a slow news day that we hear about any one specific ingredient that has a funny-sounding name. And then when we hear the name, from the media, we shift into panic mode! Please folks, let's use our noggins, instead of living on emotions and fear.
I would have to disagree with your assertion that those fillers are 'completely safe'; unless you know how a particular chemical reacts with a particular human, you cannot call that chemical safe. To make a blanket statement that all those fillers are 'completely safe' is foolhardy and dangerous.
What is 'safe' for you might not be 'safe' for anyone else.
Ingredients being labeled helps people choose what they wish to eat and what they don't wish to eat...or are you thumping for a job making everyone's dietary decisions FOR them?
touchee
I hope the labelling practices will also force restauranteers and schools to list it in their menus as an ingredient. I want to know if the 100% ground beef I am buying includes it, too. This product could be used in a lot of places that the public has a right to know about. Just labelling the ground beef is not enough!
Here's my bottom line.When I but burger I want cow without the ammonia thank you very much.Fortunately for my family we buy from a meat market and it is fresh ground on site
Wow, this is really amazing stuff.
What a RADICAL idea that Beef products with Pink Slime additives in them should be labeled as such.
As Baldenario states in his post, this is all just a game. Nothing will really change and you will all feel better about consuming pink slime when the Marketing firms are done.
I have a REALLY radical idea. When I go to the store and buy 1 pound of ground beef, it should not contain ANYTHING but ground beef. PERIOD. I find it disgusting that this stuff is in all manner of Ground Beef. estimates run anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of all beef is 'contaminated' with pink slime. Basically meaning it is IMPOSSIBLE to get pure ground beef unless you grind it yourself or go to a butcher shop and watch it being ground. I don't know about you but $$$ are very tight and I should not have to pay extra for what I am supposed to be getting in the first place.
Now the prices of beef will SKYROCKET as we all pay more for what we should have been getting in the first place. The Irony is SO rich here you could almost a burger out of it!
Somebody tell me why cant the Beef industry sell us 100 pure beef and use the 'Pink slime scraps' as dog food cattle food and fertilizer additives? The scraps will not be wasted that way and will still produce a financial return. There will still be PROFIT realized from the selling of beef scrap. Realize that a butchered cow is worth about 12 to 15 hundred dollars. That is in PURE beef. Then the beef industry must MAXIMIZE on its profits by selling us scrap meat that is basically not fit for dogs or other animals. And we pay a PREMIUM for the HONOR of consuming such products. I say make your 12 to 15 hundred dollars and sell the scrap as dog, cattle food or fertilizer additive. Instead of making 200 percent profit off the cow make 198 percent and don't sell me CRAP! I wonder what affects the increased consumption of ammoniated Beef has on the human condition over a long period of time? Any studies ever done on that?
I sure would like to see the results of THAT study ...
It's all cow meat. A lot of cultures eat every last bit of the cow including stomach and brains. What is the big deal? It couldn't be worse then Spam. If you don't like the taste, don't eat it. Other than that, it is perfectly safe and nutritious.
So a very clever man figured out how to make safe & palatable food from scraps, and like a ton of other food preparation process it’s not pretty. This is why I make my family stay out of the kitchen; they do not even realize half of the food they love to eat is filled with tons of ingredients they hate. If they did, it would never be eaten. It’s just like the beef, for years people have been eating it mostly unable to tell the difference. (Besides the fact that they knew they weren’t buying high-grade beef.) Now everyone knows and it’s to unbearable to stand.
beefisbeef. learn the truth, then eat LFTB it is 100% beef safe!
Does anyone else find it frustrating that this Pink Slime has been now in the news for a relatively short period of time and they already agree to labeling it, yet we've all been eating GMOs since the mid 1990s and are still fighting to get it labeled? It just seems like we should have the right to know what is in the food and then can make the decision after that on whether or not to buy and eat it.
Here's an idea....
For the next, oh, couple of months or so, how about all American consumers STOP buying ground beef (since you can't tell whats in it, then WHY buy it - no matter how cheap it is).....I'm sure after a few slaughterhouses go belly up, meat processors will certainly change the way they 'do business'.
Vote with your wallet...its the ONLY thing they understand.
Hmm...
"The agency has received voluntary requests from beef firms to change their labels to indicate it contains lean finely textured beef, or LFTB."
Does this mean that labels will also be allowed to state "Lean finely textured beef-Free"? Or do we have to continue to guess?
No need for pink slime in our diets.
Anyone eager to eat toxins may simply choose the likes of diet soda or frozen tv dinners.
I wonder who the official is that authorized this stuff in the first place. And are they recieving a tax payer pension?
Of course, by the time the spinwizards for the big meat packagers get through, this will be labeled as "Non-hydrogenated caloric enhancer material", and they will be selling it as a premium ingredient!
BETTER THINGS FOR BETTER LIVING, THROUGH CHEMISTRY! Oh, really?
There are plenty of good uses for the pink slime. Like others have said, "What is in a hotdog?" The problem is selling ground beef and including pink slime without labeling. I like to buy a side of beef every year. I can attest that No store bought beef I have seen can compare to the beef I am buying directly from the farmer / butcher. A close second would be Wade's grocery... Small town local grocery with a meat dept. You can get to know the butcher, and buy what you want. Stay away from the big box grocery where you can't see them cutting the meat!
Let me see we fund the FDA with millions of dollars to protect us from products that are harmful and it seems that they do nothing but ask for more people and more money. Shame on our government on both sides of the aisle for their lack of job performance. These politicians only want more of our money for free health care, free pensions and living large at our expense. It is interesting that most of these politicians are lawyers who spend most of their time developing a lie to the point they do not even know what the truth is anymore. That whole bunch of corrupt thieves in Washington, D.C. needs to be run out of office. They should only get paid and receive health care while they are in office. No pensions or retirement health care for this bunch of career (sic) politicians. Our lack of awareness has allowed this to occur and it needs to stop before America no longer exists.