Perhaps the most horrifying report I’ve read about fast food and cheap hamburgers was in the New York Times a few days ago.
If you think fast food and cheap hamburger meat is safe and you’re just really smart and getting a bargain — think again.
Although the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) oversees the safety, and has been more or less concerned with contamination of bacteria such as E coli, the New York Times reported that one company, Beef Products Inc., has managed to avoid close examination of their beef product because they inject the meat trimmings with ammonia.
You did read that correctly.
The company, Beef Products Inc discovered a way to make the unusable beef parts – fatty trimmings – into chopped meat. The trimmings are prone to E coli and salmonella, but they are cheap and can be added to actual ground beef to lower the cost of the final product.
The “treatment” is to process it with ammonia. And at least one source quoted in the article characterized the substance as “pink slime.”
In response to the NYT article, spokespeople from the industry and corporations made firm assertions of the safety of its beef. Fast-food chains McDonald’s Corp. and Burger King Holdings Inc. and agricultural conglomerate Cargill Inc. all use the meat in their hamburgers. All said they’ll keep using the meat and that their products are safe avoiding the issue of whether it’s a good idea to add ammonia to food products.
Tags: food, road trips, travel