I recently saw this blog post, linked from a friend’s Facebook page.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/is-pink-slime-in-the-beef-at-your-grocery-store/
It reminded me of the movie, “Food, Inc.“, where I learned of that disgusting pink goopy chicken filler that’s used to make fast food chicken nuggets. It’s probably also used in those cheap frozen “Cordon Bleu” two-packs I used to eat before I knew better. I won’t say the brand in case I’m wrong (but I’m probably not), but I’m sure you’ve seen them in the freezer section of your grocery store.
Anyway, the point of this post is that this is exactly why we need to 1) cook for ourselves as much as possible, and 2) buy organic ingredients.
Cook For Yourself
We would never cook a meal made with processed non-meat cow parts that have zero nutritional value. So why does the USDA call it “Safe”? Because it won’t kill you? Neither would eating cardboard. Would the USDA call cardboard a safe thing to eat?
Buy Organic Ingredients
Even though it’s not made out of pure muscle meat, the manufacturer calls this filler “Finely textured beef” which means the USDA does not consider it an additive and therefore it doesn’t have to be identified on the label.
This just illustrates yet another reason to buy organic ingredients as much as possible. The “Organic” label does not just mean that the food was raised without pesticides and hormones. It means a lot more than that, and in this case it means there is no filler added (because the filler is not organic). So if you eat organic meat, you will never have to wonder if it contains non-nutritious animal parts. Yes, organic foods cost more, partly because the food products that include pink slime filler are cheaper to make.
This is not a rant against the USDA. It is what it is and my one blog post won’t change that. What YOU can do is stop buying this crap, and tell the manufacturers WHY you aren’t buying it. Eventually if enough of us stop buying it, they’ll have to stop making it.