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"pink slime"

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VB RANCH

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SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb | Fri Mar 30, 2012 4:24am EDT

SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb (Reuters) - A maker of the hamburger filler branded by critics as "pink slime" on Thursday allowed three state governors supportive of the beef industry and a handful of journalists to see it being made for the first time since a controversy erupted over use of the meat scraps.

Beef Products Inc, the leading producer of the filler the industry calls "finely textured beef," opened its meat plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska in a remote area straddling Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.

The tour was part of an effort by the beef industry to fight consumer activists who have successfully campaigned to ban the beef filler from most supermarkets, fast food and school lunches.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and Iowa Governor Terry Branstad -- wearing hard hats, white coats and munching on hamburgers during the visit -- said the bad rap on "pink slime" was an unwarranted food scare.

"When we have these false rumors that get started, they have the potential to take down an entire company. That really hits close to home," Perry said, adding that 650 workers had been idled by the scare, including 300 at a meat plant in Texas.

After being shown the examples of the fat-laden scraps up to 8 inches long in an adjacent conference room, the tour entered the gleaming plant, where workers kept watch on the automated process that churned out pink 60-pound blocks of the textured filler.

A reporter on the tour described the product as about as red as typical ground beef but with a less-coarse texture. Consumers, he was told, prefer the coarser texture, so the filler which the industry says is 98 percent lean, is mixed in to make the beef sold on store shelves leaner.

The tour was organized as hundreds of U.S. school districts demanded the beef filler be removed from school lunch programs, and the three largest U.S. supermarket chains halted purchases of beef containing the filler. A regional grocery chain, Hy-Vee Inc., said it reversed a ban and would sell beef with and without the filler.

McDonald's stopped using hamburgers with the filler last year.

While the U.S. Agriculture Department says the filler is safe to eat, this has not stopped a campaign by food activists, which gained traction when celebrity chef Jamie Oliver complained about it on his television show and showed pictures of unsightly globs of filler.

Beef Products took out newspaper ads featuring testimonials from health experts attesting to the product's safety. The governors were handed T-shirts printed with the slogan, "Dude, it's beef."

The tour was held at the last of Beef Products' four plants producing the filler remaining in operation. The others were idled because of a drop in demand. The company explained that few people are allowed in to the plant because the machinery and processes it uses are proprietary.

The company showed the governors and reporters how the product is made.

First, a conveyer belt brought in scraps left over from a plant next door that produces steaks, roasts and other cuts of meat. The scraps were heated to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit to facilitate separation of the fat, then dumped into a huge meat grinder to pull out fat, cartilage, bone and connective tissue.

A centrifuge spinning 3,000 times a minute continued the separation process. Inside a third machine the material was treated with ammonia hydroxide gas to eliminate bacteria.

The treated bits of meat were moved into large roller-presses inside drums up to 14 feet tall, which flattened the meat and froze it down to 15 degrees, which lightened its color. The meat was pried out of the drums, then put in a grinder that churned out 60-pound bricks that were packaged individually for shipment.

Companies selling hamburger fold the filler from the bricks into the hamburger to make it leaner.

At a news conference held at a nearby hotel, Brownback said the activists' campaign used a "catchy name" to discourage people from eating healthier beef.

"We're trying to get people to eat better and now what is going to happen because of this unmerited, unwarranted food scare, and that's what it is ... you're going to drive up the price of lean ground beef," Brownback said.

Meat producers have predicted hamburger prices will rise as the spring grilling season begins because they will no longer be able to use the cheap filler to mix with the higher quality cuts of beef.

Beef Products has idled three plants with 650 workers while it tries to restore demand for the product and Cargill also said it had scaled back production.
 
I just learned about pink slime a short while ago, and it made me mad to be a producer and not know this process of adulteration before now. However this insight explains those 'Concession' hambugers that I accidently bought and didn't finish eating because of the off texture and funny taste. I called them 'weiner burgers' because to me they tasted like a cross between a hamburger and a weiner, and now I realize its because thats exactly what they were! If I want pink slime then I will order a hot dog. I haven't bought a concession burger for about 2 decades now because I am afraid of getting another weiner burger. I would imagine that if I feel that way then there are others who do too, and that means a loss of burger sales to ordinary consumers who don't trust whats in their beef. :mad:
 
I heard a cattle buyer say yesterday that if this ban continues it will take 8000 more slaughter cows to make up the difference. That means higher prices for cows but also the consumer.
 
[/quote]I heard a cattle buyer say yesterday that if this ban continues it will take 8000 more slaughter cows to make up the difference. That means higher prices for cows but also the consumer.
Really!?! Then thats WAY too much pink slime hidden in our food.
 
Without trying to make anyone mad i gotta give ya my 2 cents. I have heard endless ads on the radio talking about how 1 in 8 people struggle with hunger. And that isn't in a 3rd world country, it's happening in America! So the industry that provides a great source of protein to the world comes up with a way to UTILIZE more beef using technology and they are vilified for it? :???: I have had the PRIVILEDGE of having a full belly my entire life. I have the PRIVILEDGE to live on a ranch and eat vegetables fresh from the garden, meat i raised and had processed locally or did it myself and a freezer full of wild game, fish and even home grown chicken. BUT I AM SUPER FORTUNATE! What about the folks who struggle with hunger? Does anyone ask them about finely textured lean meat filler? NO! Some do gooder who probably thinks ALL BEEF CAUSES CANCER comes up with "PINK SLIME" and the media runs with it. The uninformed public panic and we have what we have. You go ask those folks in the inner city who struggle to pay thier rent much less have a ribeye for supper if they can afford to pay more for burger? Ask folks in 3rd world countries who's kids starve to death about "Pink Slime"? Bet you'll get a completely different answer than somebody with a full belly and the means to keep it that way! This is simply another attack on BEEF! And just because you and I are blessed and fortunate and lucky enough to live our lifestyles doesn't mean folks in different circumstances don't WANT and even NEED products like finely textured beef. Every year we lose how many more family farms and ranches? Every year we turn crop and grazing land into how many houses and strip malls? And every year we find new technology to allow us to feed the world more efficiently. How long we been feeding distillers grain or ethanol byproducts? I've learned about swarth grazing and mob grazing from this site and the forward thinking producers that come here. Why not expect our processing industry to be as efficient and un-wasteful as possible? But instead of appluading the effort to UTILIZE more of every animal we smear them and attemp to shut them down. I probably haven't had finely textured beef more than a few times at fast food joints. I get to eat home raised, perfectly fed (If i do say so myself) and humanely harvested beef. But i'd have to be awful shallow minded and maybe a little conceited to think everyone in the world ought follow an agenda that is merely an attack on beef. In a perfect world, everyone would get to eat enough and it would be all natural and healthy like mine. But the world sure isn't perfect. While finely textured beef isn't perfect either, it beats not eating!
 
leanin' H said:
Without trying to make anyone mad i gotta give ya my 2 cents. I have heard endless ads on the radio talking about how 1 in 8 people struggle with hunger. And that isn't in a 3rd world country, it's happening in America! So the industry that provides a great source of protein to the world comes up with a way to UTILIZE more beef using technology and they are vilified for it? :???: I have had the PRIVILEDGE of having a full belly my entire life. I have the PRIVILEDGE to live on a ranch and eat vegetables fresh from the garden, meat i raised and had processed locally or did it myself and a freezer full of wild game, fish and even home grown chicken. BUT I AM SUPER FORTUNATE! What about the folks who struggle with hunger? Does anyone ask them about finely textured lean meat filler? NO! Some do gooder who probably thinks ALL BEEF CAUSES CANCER comes up with "PINK SLIME" and the media runs with it. The uninformed public panic and we have what we have. You go ask those folks in the inner city who struggle to pay thier rent much less have a ribeye for supper if they can afford to pay more for burger? Ask folks in 3rd world countries who's kids starve to death about "Pink Slime"? Bet you'll get a completely different answer than somebody with a full belly and the means to keep it that way! This is simply another attack on BEEF! And just because you and I are blessed and fortunate and lucky enough to live our lifestyles doesn't mean folks in different circumstances don't WANT and even NEED products like finely textured beef. Every year we lose how many more family farms and ranches? Every year we turn crop and grazing land into how many houses and strip malls? And every year we find new technology to allow us to feed the world more efficiently. How long we been feeding distillers grain or ethanol byproducts? I've learned about swarth grazing and mob grazing from this site and the forward thinking producers that come here. Why not expect our processing industry to be as efficient and un-wasteful as possible? But instead of appluading the effort to UTILIZE more of every animal we smear them and attemp to shut them down. I probably haven't had finely textured beef more than a few times at fast food joints. I get to eat home raised, perfectly fed (If i do say so myself) and humanely harvested beef. But i'd have to be awful shallow minded and maybe a little conceited to think everyone in the world ought follow an agenda that is merely an attack on beef. In a perfect world, everyone would get to eat enough and it would be all natural and healthy like mine. But the world sure isn't perfect. While finely textured beef isn't perfect either, it beats not eating!

BINGO!

Those who complain the most about food and how it is produced do so with the luxury of a full belly.
:mad:
 
NoNO No.... I am not mad becasue they utilize more of the beef, I am mad becasue for years they have been sneaking the ammoniated crap into good ground beef and not telling us they are doing it. I am trying to convince people that beef is good and wholesome and then these idiots find a way to sneak in adulterated ammoniated filler and call it beef!

This really has nothing to do with starving kids in Africa, this is about duping North American Consumers into eating something they had no knowledge about. If you were to package a brick of pink slime at the grocery store, you might find a few people that would actually buy it, but to put a certain percentage of pink slime into your favorite burger when you were not aware that it was there is somewhat criminal. All burger that is adulterated should be labeled as such simply because of the ammoniation. Its just wrong.
 
SAFE to eat and good to eat are not one and the same.

I remember the young and poor days of buying the cheapest ground beef in the big chub packs and it was fatty but it was OK ground beef. Then some years later I bought one again when we were "in between steers" and it was lousy. Poor texture and poor taste. A truly inferior product and eating experience.

The consumer sees "ground beef" on a package and they think nice chunks of muscle and fat, ground up. They don't think of some highly mechanized process to extract the last bit of protein from what formerly went to the dog food plant! So, yes, when this hit the news, people felt like they had been the victim of a bait and switch. And in a way, they were. The meat industry sure wasn't sending out news releases about this product or the process, now were they?

This isn't Somalia, we have enough abundance in this country that people shouldn't have to eat that carp, especially schoolchildren.

Make "premium" dog food out of it that the Petco type shoppers will pay premium prices for. Use it in hot dogs or bologna or something that we EXPECT to be made out of lips and a-holes.
 
I guess I can see how consumers are upset about the issue, but only for the fact that it was not on the label or something. I think the process is fine, and I'd eat the stuff. As I understand it, the same stuff is used on vegetables and a bunch of other foods for the same reason its used in LTFB.

Consumers at some point will have to choose between food saftey protocols, such as the ammonium hydroxide that is used on the LTFB, or beef recalls and people getting sick and occasionally dying from their food. I am all for giving the consumer what they want. But as an industry we also have to decide which is better, telling the consumer how their food is made safer, or trying to figure out how to keep demand strong in the face of more recalls. Maybe its not that simple, but it seems like one or the other to me.

I watched a Daily Show clip where Jon Stewart was poking fun at the issue and ended with something like, "pink slime - its no worse than the other s***t you already eat!" How true. I somehow don't think that the 95% lean LFTB is the leading cause for the obesity epidemic in the US.

The really maddening part to me is the lazy (or dishonest?) journalism that is reporting on the issue. The photo of the strawberry ice cream looking "pink slime"? It's not beef, and it's not from the BPI plant. I saw the EXACT same photo about 3 years ago...saying that it was mechanically separated CHICKEN used in McDonald's chicken nuggets! And who knows if that was really the truth either! Just look at the photo for a minute. Does it seem strange that a raw meat product intended for human consumption would be dumped into a cardboard box (which does not appear large enough to actually hold the product anyway) without some sort of plastic lining? I'm no Dick Tracy but it seems like a staged photo to me.

Sorry for the rant, I needed to get it out of my system.
 
Top Myths of "Pink Slime"

The media has been spreading a lot of myths about what "pink slime" is. The image spreading on the internet is not beef. Read more about the top myths of pink slime below.


Myth 1:

Boneless lean beef trimmings look like pink slime.

Fact:

The photo many media have used to represent pink slime is not boneless lean beef trimmings.

Boneless lean beef trimmings actually looks like this:

6854254534_d1787a4b3e.jpg


Myth 2:

"Boneless lean beef trimmings" or "lean finely textured beef" which have recently been called "pink slime," are just "fillers" and not beef at all.

Fact:

As their real names suggest, boneless lean beef trimmings are 100% USDA inspected beef. Imagine trimming fat from a roast or steak. There's always some meat that is trimmed with the fat. It is this meat, trimmed from the fat, which becomes boneless lean beef trimmings. When you compare the nutrition analysis of this lean beef with 90% lean/10% fat ground beef, they are virtually identical. That's because boneless lean beef trim is beef – period.


Myth 3:

Ground beef produced with boneless lean beef trimmings is less nutritious than other ground beef.

Fact:

A side-by-side comparison of nutrition labels for 90% lean/10% fat ground beef demonstrates this lean beef has substantially identical nutritional value as 90% lean ground beef. Lean ground beef is low in fat and is a good or excellent source of 10 essential nutrients, including protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins.


Myth 4:

Boneless lean beef trimmings are produced from inedible meat.

Fact:

Boneless lean beef trimmings are 100% edible meat. These trimmings are simply the lean beef removed from the meat and fat that is trimmed away when beef is cut into steaks and roasts. The meat in these trimming is nearly impossible to separate with a knife so, historically, this product only could be used in cooked beef products when the fat was cooked and separated for tallow. But now there is a process that separates the fat from the fresh lean beef, and it is this fresh lean beef that can be used in ground meat foods like hamburger and sausages. No process exists that could somehow make an inedible meat edible.


Myth 5:

Dangerous chemicals are added to boneless lean beef trimmings.

Fact:

This is a reference to ammonium hydroxide, essentially ammonia and water, both naturally occurring compounds that have been used to make foods safe since 1974, when the Food and Drug Administration declared it GRAS or Generally Recognized as Safe, the highest safety attribution the agency assigns to compounds. Boneless lean beef trimmings receive a puff of ammonia to eliminate bacteria safely and effectively. When combined with moisture naturally in beef, ammonium hydroxide is formed, which is a naturally occurring compound found in many foods, in our own bodies and the environment. Food safety experts and scientists agree it is an effective way to ensure safer ground beef.


Myth 6:

Food safety advocates are concerned about the safety of boneless lean beef trimmings.

Fact:

Scientists, advocates and plaintiff's lawyers, who in many cases are critical of the beef industry, have all stepped forward to praise Beef Products Inc. and its efforts at food safety.


Myth 7:

Because ammonium hydroxide is an ingredient, ground beef containing boneless lean beef trimmings should be labeled.

Fact:

Ammonium hydroxide is not an ingredient added to the product – rather, the product receives a puff of ammonia to eliminate bacteria safely and effectively. When combined with moisture naturally in beef, ammonium hydroxide is formed, which is a naturally occurring compound found in many foods including baked goods, cheese, chocolate, and puddings, in our own bodies and the environment. It is used in the production of each of these foods as a processing aid and not an ingredient, so not "on the label" of those foods either. It is safe and has been approved by FDA since 1974 and specifically approved for its food safety benefits in beef processing since 2001


Myth 8:

Lean finely textured beef (LFTB) is "filler" for ground beef.

Fact:

Many in the media have begun to describe Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB) as "filler" for ground beef. This is factually inaccurate. Meat fillers include cereals, legumes, vegetable, roots and tubers, and may not be used in anything carrying the term "ground beef" due to its standard of identity. On the other hand, LFTB is an end product made from boneless lean beef trimming, the very same beef that is processed into roasts and steaks for retailers and restaurants. These trimmings are simply small pieces of beef with fat attached.

The boneless lean beef trimmings become "finely textured" using high-technology food processing equipment that resembles a large, high-speed mixing bowl, in which they are warmed to help separate away the fat so that only the beef remains. The result is a high-quality beef product and is at least 90 percent lean.

LFTB is blended into ground beef, which is required by law to be made exclusively from beef. It has not been labeled as a separate ingredient because it is 100 percent beef. It is not an additive or filler. In fact, to label it as anything but beef would raise truth-in-labeling questions.



More at the link:

http://beefisbeef.com/
 
Opinion: Pink Slime Issue Exposes Our Industry Traitors
In the aftermath of the so-called "pink slime" controversy, more accurately known as lean, finely textured beef, we've seen some major retail outlets and restaurants electing not to offer the product. We've also seen three BPI plants temporarily shut, and there have even been a few school districts that have suspended such product purchases.

On the other hand, we've seen the USDA Secretary, academics, scientists and politicians whose state economies have been impacted by the shutdown come out in defense of the technology.

The thing that's interesting is that no one is arguing the product's safety – it's a USDA-approved process and product. The recovery process also makes ground beef leaner (which is a health aspect), plus it lowers the overall cost of ground beef to consumers.

Still, there's something magical about the words "pink slime," so christened by a government microbiologist in an email to his colleagues some years ago. The characterization was borrowed for use in media reportage, which aptly fit the need for sensationalism, and – perception being reality – the industry was suddenly playing catch up on the issue.

I don't believe anyone is surprised that the anti-meat activists jumped on this issue. And, it took no one by surprise that the anti-modern agriculture movement also jumped on the pink slime fiasco as validation that something is fundamentally wrong with how we produce our food. What maybe was a little surprising was that that the anti-modern agriculture movement within our industry also jumped on this opportunity.

The whole episode raises the question about which principles are worth standing up for and which ones can, or should be, compromised in the pursuit of political or economic objectives. This particular issue is one that goes beyond the natural, organic, anti-modern, anti-market activists.

Groups like the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) have been struggling, as a result of their losing efforts in remaking the GIPSA marketing rules, as well as mandatory country-of-origin labeling. So these groups, having discarded the goal of converting the majority of livestock industry to their positions, have concluded that topics such as pink slime fit their immediate fundraising needs.

In the end, groups like OCM have concluded that their cause is important enough to join with the enemies of our industry. And the results are sadly pretty predictable. As the saying goes "when you lie down with the dogs, you tend to get fleas."

Just as the interests of the country should come above partisan politics, the beef industry's best interest should come above petty internal differences. It's no accident that hamburger is under attack; it's the most price-sensitive and a major part of our market. If you hammer the hamburger, you hammer the industry, and these guys are patient and seem to love the idea of using our credibility to destroy ourselves.

The greatest irony is that those who want to destroy the modern packing industry are advocating increased production costs and regulations that will ensure the only ones who can compete are the biggest of players.

by Troy Marshall in My View From The Country
Mar. 30, 2012 10:02am
 
That's all pretty interesting stuff. Pretty sad how special intrest groups can play the media and by extension the populace with fear and misinformation.
This product sound to me to be more appealing than the process of flash freezing chickens, blasting them into chicken dust with high pressure water, and reforming into all those fancy chicken treats everyone loves so much :D
 
The majority of cattle markets traded lower last week, driven by sharply lower boxed beef prices and soft retail demand. The continuing saga of lean, fine-textured beef (LFTB), commonly referred to in the media as "pink slime," reduced demand for the product and resulted in the temporary closure of three plants and the loss of 650 jobs.

Cash fed cattle traded mostly $1 per hundredweight lower for the week, with dressed sales in Nebraska $1 to $2 lower. Northern feedyards sold cattle at $126 to $127 per hundredweight, and $200 to $202 dressed. Southern feedyards sold at $125 to $125.50 per hundredweight.

Boxed beef cutout values fell sharply lower for the week. Choice boxed beef traded Friday at $183.37 per hundredweight, a decline of $4.04 from the previous Friday. The Select price on Friday was $182.40, a decline of $4.17 from last week. The Choice-Select spread was $0.97, compared to $0.84 last Friday.

Stocker and feeder cattle traded steady to $4 per hundredweight higher across the nation, with weakness noted on heavy yearlings over 850 pounds that were called steady to $3 lower. Demand for light grazing cattle remains strong, and bids on those cattle were $4 to $8 higher.

Last week's auction receipts totaled 196,400, compared to 208,200 the previous week and 218,500 last year. Direct sales of stocker and feeder cattle totaled 27,600, with video/Internet sales at 55,500. The weekly total was 279,500, compared to 345,300, a year ago.

Slaughter cows sold steady to as much as $5 higher, mostly on extremely tight supplies. Cattle futures lost $3 for the week, and have now recorded weekly losses for four consecutive weeks.

USDA released quarterly grain stocks report for March 1, which came in below expectations for corn and wheat but soybean stocks were close to expectations. Last week also saw the Prospective Plantings report which suggests farmers will plant 225.7 million acres to corn, soybeans and wheat this year. That would represent an increase of 4.4 million acres over last year. Intended corn plantings were estimated at 95.9 million acres, up 3.9 million from last year. Soybean acreage was called 73.9 million acres, down 1.1 million from last year.

seems it has worked, gotta have cheap food
 
Many thanks to the ones who posted responsible, accurate information here!

To those of you who spouted the 'party lines' of those who hate packers and anyone who doesn't do likewise, you need to get a life and figure out who is supporting a healthy cattle/beef industry!

Cattle production and beef processing darn well better work together. There are plenty of people out there who want BOTH ended!

AND those people are mighty powerful with their gullible public sending them those checks for $19.95 evey month "to help the animals".

Just a few websites for some accurate info:www.meatpoultry.com, www.beefisbeef.com, www.explorebeef.com. The beefisbeef one had lots of informative links.

One troubling point is that even beef media people have been calling the lean beef trimmings a "filler" or "additive". It is NOT. It is simply the pieces of lean muscle, with nearly all fat removed. It is NOT any other mystery "parts" of the critter. Some have implied lips, tripe, and other small internal parts eaten in some cultures, but generally not ours. My grandmother used to cook the sweetbreads and brain. We always ate heart, tongue, liver, but rarely do so now. Some people are grossed out by the very idea, so activists take advantage and also use outright lies.

The reason it is not labeled: wouldn't a label on hamburger stating (accurately!) ___% lean textured BEEF protein added be redundant???? It IS all beef muscle, NO additives!

The so called "ammonia" is a puff of a gas containing some gas with the letters spelling ammonia in the name........so that leap was too easy for some to turn into "scrubbing the meat in a tub of ammonia and water and wringing it out". That claim should be a slam dunk for a good attorney!

Another irony: In a cheeseburger, the beef with lean beef protein has far less exposure to the gas than does any other component, from bun to ketchup!

Those who believe they will get even higher prices for their cull cows because of this better not count the money too fast. Your culls probably are too fat for the burgers. One reason the product is used is to bring the fat content of our cull cow burger meat down to saleable levels!

We have been able to beat off EPA by showing them how much the 'carbon footprint of beef production" has been reduced, why should we throw away a good ten to twelve pounds of lean beef, which is the approximate average amount of MEAT recovered with this process.

BTW, the plant and owner has received many prestigious awards for various facets of his excellence of operations, from plant design to safety, and more. FURTHER: he has a very modest background and is an innovative inventor or state of the art facility and equipment invention and design focused on food safety.

If the anti-meat folks get away with this, anyone producing good food could be next. It is time for food producers to stand up to the manipulators and activists trying to take the food production systems back to "the good old days" where all you COULD eat was 'local food'.

mrj
 
For my $0.02 worth the issue for me is not if "Pink Slime" is safe or not - - - the issue is if I am buying I want to know what I'm getting - - - I eat bologna on occasion, and even sometimes a hotdog.

I do not want to pay for ground beef with a filler of any kind. The "finely textured" beef should be put in bologna or hotdogs or dog food and if not it should be listed and let me decide if I want to buy it or not!
 
George, what if it is NOT a "filler", but is ALL beef and only beef which has been protected from the possibility of environmentally spread (through the air) organisms which could harm some people if they fail to cook it adequately?

Isn't it excessive to expect them to add a label stating: "Up to pounds of Lean Finely Textured 97% fat free beef has been added to your 7 pounds of coarsely ground, 90% fat beef to make a lower fat burger which is more healthful for people"

The above 'label' is more accurate than to say "filler added" when using the produce from BPI, according to what I've read about it on various sites.

I don't know about the costs of production, but if you learn what the guy invented, designed, and installed to make that plant as safe from contaminating the meat as possible, it looks like LBTB should cost more than 'conventionally' made hamburger!

mrj
 
I'm not against the LFTB itself, what I take exception to is them quietly sneaking it into fresh ground beef. I believe it has a mealy texture and less flavor and it lowers the quality of the eating experience. Beef is supposed to be the Cadillac of meat, remember? And, by having the public find out about this product via the media, now trust in the industry has been degraded. I'm not "against the packers", but I am against telling the consumers, "there, there, you are just too ignorant to understand how it all works" when they object to something they didn't know they were getting in the first place.

The product should be fine for bologna, hot dogs, summer sausage type products, maybe beef sticks or formed jerky type of products, lots of other things that are more processed to begin with.
 
Well I do have a life, and we have always made our family's living from the cattle industry, so we have supported it also, maybe not always in ways that would please all, in (party lines ) so be it!
I will say this will be a black eye for the beef industry for some time, and I sure do not think it should have happened today??
Everyone should know that everything but the bellar that can be processed into an eatable product will be done, it will dyed or stuffed or what ever to get it sold period, we expect in in bologna and other like products, even the fine textured meat now don't we!!
Folks all the time tell us they don't eat much beef any more because it does not taste like it used too and they say they hard'ly ever buy ground meat and if they do, they do not use it for bugers anymore ?? I know I sure won't buy it.
My point is why do we need to put this fine textured meat in our good ground beef when bologna and other like products sell for more money than ground beef and most folks would expect a product like that in there??
If we want to succeed we want everyone to have an enjoyable experience every time they eat beef, if not they damed sure are going to eat something else today because there it other things out there. 101
 
We do all have a right to our OPINION, but NOT to our own version of the FACTS of a situation.

Until you can prove that the product in question, processed at the BPI plant, is anything other than 100% ground muscle meat, you do not have any RIGHT to say it contains"everything but the bellar"!

People selling this product were following the rules.

How would you justify a label stating: "Fine Textured, 100% BEEF, 95 to 99%fat free added to coarse ground 100% beef that is 90 to95% fat, THEN was exposed to a puff of ammonium gas to assure absence of bacteria, then held in the plant of origin while it is additionally tested to assure freedom from bacteria before shipping, but the level of ammonia in this beef is less than in any other part consumers might use in making the hamburger sandwich, including the bun, pickles, ketchup, mustard "???

That all would be accurate and factual for the product being attacked and "truth in labelling" demanded of.

The objective of developing this product is first, to get more beef from the carcass, and then to take as much fat as possible off that beef in order to end up with the fat ratio and absolute safety of the burger that consumers SAY they want!

They want the leaner beef, even tho some of us may not like the flavor: thus the claims that beef no longer tastes like it used to.

This should NOT have happened, not because the process is flawed, but because some people with agenda to damage the meat industries saw an opportunity.

And how could beef taste like it used to when it is fed differently, whether it gets corn, distillers, or barley, or grass only.

Probably more important is that the critter is harvested at a much younger age than it used to be, which obviously has an effect on flavor. Add the fact that it rarely is dry aged, and there are probably more reason it may taste different. How many stoves cook the same as they used to?

I'm not making excuses, just trying to broaden thinking. There sure are plenty of choices of types of beef to buy for people living where they can get them, or even by mail order. You will (and should) have to pay the costs of the 'custom grown' stuff, though.

What percent of the cattle raised in the USA grade low Choice or above? We all seem to want high Choice or Prime and to buy it at the Select price.
 

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