Concerns were raised again when the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemic, commonly known as "mad cow disease", occurred in the United Kingdom in 1986. Since bits of the spinal cord (the part most likely to be carrying the BSE prion)[4][5] often got mixed in with the rest of the meat, products using mechanically separated meat taken from the carcasses of bovines were at higher risk for transmitting BSE to humans.
Given how resilient prions are I’d be pretty damned wary of eating purées of nerve tissue.
The term “pink slime” is actually a derogatory one for all the little cuttings and “trim” that appear when cattle carcasses are being sliced up into steaks. Mechanically separated beef has been illegal in the USA since 2004 and I don't see that this ruling changes that. Please show me a source with this interpretation.
No, it’s the same product that has undergone additional steps to make it legal to serve to humans. The critical step is typically the application of ammonia, and less often, citric acid. Often the product is defatted prior to this step, but the only legal distinction is the use of a germicidal agent.
You keep posting this, but your own links are clear that this is false.
Mechanically separated meat is not allowed for human consumption specifically because of the danger of potential-prion-containing nerve tissue entering the product. Importantly, these prions are extremely difficult to deactivate, and thus it wouldn't make sense to allow this to be served to humans, no matter what further processing happened.
> A meat product known as “boneless lean beef trimmings” (BLBT) or “lean finely textured beef,” pejoratively referred to as “pink slime,” is often confused with mechanically separated meat, although it is produced by a different process. In order to extract pricer lean beef from less valuable, fattier trimmings, centrifuges are used to separate the fat out of the meat trimmings, and the resulting lean beef is then squeezed through small tubes, where it is exposed to a small amount of ammonia gas, producing a pinkish substance. Unlike MSM, lean beef trimmings are legal for sale in the U.S., although they are mixed in with other meat products (usually ground beef) and generally do not comprise more than 25 percent of the final meat products purchased by end consumers.
As far as I can tell, "mechanically separated meat" is meat that's been mechanically separated from bones by a grinding process. The prion fears are because some of the bone gets in, and some of the bone contains nerve tissue.
The article says that pink slime is instead made from beef trimmings, which does not involve that grinding process.
> The meat produced in this manner can contain no more than 150(±30) milligrams of calcium per 200 grams product, as calcium in such high concentrations in the product would be indicative of bone being mixed with the meat. Products that exceed the calcium content limit must instead be labeled "mechanically separated beef or pork" in the ingredients statement.
It’s not ground beef. There is no grinder grinding up chunks of meat which is the definition of ground beef. It’s mechanically separated meat and should be called that not ground beef.
I wouldn't mind if it were labelled better. But from the consumer point of view, what's the difference? The texture is different and it's been disinfected. Doesn't seem like a huge deal.
It's considered extremely safe. The disinfectant used is either citric acid or ammonia (and the remaining ammonia residue is not enough to be harmful to humans). It does sound concerning, but it generally is not.
Safety of the disinfectant isn't the issue. It's the care of the food in the process. Ground beef processing needs to be handled with care to prevent it from being contaminated with feces to prevent Ecoli H157 outbreaks. I'd rather my food receive greater care in handling and preventing fecal contamination then just blanket disinfecting it.
I understand the concern wrt E. Coli (I assume you were referring to O157:H7 -- the number after the O refers to the antigen produced by the lipopolysaccharide layer, and H refers to the flaggelar antigen, so H157 is likely an error). Also, the USDA has categorized other E. Coli stains as adulterants: O26, O131, O145, O45, O111, O121.
Also, Salmonella has a tendency to grow in ground production areas and is a concern as well. The fact of the matter is, ammonia disinfection is a tool to combat these threats, and is useful even in instances where proper food handling practices are observed. After all, if ground beef is prepared correctly by the consumer (i.e. cooked to 160F, not cross-contaminated), then it's a moot point anyway. But we still do all of this as a precaution to protect people. And because it's the law.
Only the US puts warnings both at butchers and on packages for meat products. It’s has to do our prevalence of food borne diseases caused by our lax regulation and food handling standards. Europe doesn’t have the large meat borne ecoli outbreaks like the US. They’re outbreaks are through vegetables. You can eat raw hamburger(beef tartar) with little risk of getting sick in Europe. You be foolish to grab ground beef at a US supermarket and it eat it raw.
> Europe doesn’t have the large meat borne ecoli outbreaks like the US. They’re outbreaks are through vegetables. You can eat raw hamburger(beef tartar) with little risk of getting sick in Europe.
Do you have any solid data or can you cite any analysis of per-capita STEC infections, categorized by infection vector, for the US and EU?
Also, steak tartare is made of steak, not trim. I'm not convinced that it makes for a valid comparison.
