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Is pink slime dangerous and how can I avoid it? – K.B. Chico, CA

Great question! Here’s the skinny:

What is “pink slime”?

“Pink slime” is a pejorative term for “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB), “finely textured beef” (FTB), or boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT). It’s added into ground beef as a filler and to reduce the fat content of the final product. To make pink slime, boneless beef trimmings (small leftover pieces of beef) are heated, centrifuged (spun around really fast to remove the fat), frozen and crushed into a paste. To disinfect it, ammonia or citric acid treatment is often used.

The term was coined by a USDA scientist by the name of Gerald Zirnstein. He didn’t like the look of the pink slime (to be fair, almost no one does), and he objected to it being classified as meat (he was overruled by his USDA superiors). Zirnstein may have had a point – this is probably stretching the definition of meat that most of us would accept. Basically, they took some fatty pieces of meat, removed most of the fat and turned what was left into a paste in the process – I guess that’s sorta meat? More like a meat puree? Whatever you call it, there is little doubt that it is made from meat, so we’ll just call it meat and move on.

Using ammonia to disinfect the LFTB has received much of the media attention, partly because it is specifically banned from use in Canada and the European Union (EU). However, Canada and the EU allow similar products which could be described as pink slime. The citric-acid treated LFTB is used in Canada and the EU allows something called “de-sinewed meat” or “red meat paste.” These all sound gross.

Is pink slime safe?

Yes.

Pink slime is safe. There is no data, literally none at all, that says otherwise. You’ll hear some people talk about the ammonia used to make some forms of it, but ammonia is very commonly used as a food additive or in food processing, and the levels of ammonia in pink slime are lower than many other foods. Your body makes ammonia all the time and is very good at getting rid of it. It’s safe, period.

Is pink slime gross?

Yes! There’s a reason they call it pink slime.

Why are people worried about pink slime?

There’s a story here. LFTB was introduced into the US food supply in 1990, and at one point was allowed to make up 25% of a ground beef product (currently, the limit is 15%). Even after Zirnstein first called it pink slime, it’s use went unnoticed until a series of articles in the press, the most notable of which was a 2012 eleven part (!) story about pink slime on ABC news. This really blew the doors off the industry and resulted in the following:

1. Many fast food chains and supermarkets stopped using or selling ground beef that contained pink slime, and many school systems temporarily stopped buying ground beef with pink slime.
2. As a result, pink slime use plummeted. Once used in 70% of the ground beef in the US, the sales of LFTB, FTB, and FTBT dropped by 80% almost overnight.
3. The major manufacturers of pink slime greatly reduced it’s production due to the decreased demand, and thousands of workers were laid off across the country as a result. Numerous plants were closed and billions in profits were lost.
4. Due to decreased demand, cattle futures plummeted to a 3 year low.
5. One of the major manufacturers of pink slime, a company unimaginatively called Beef Products Inc (BPI) sued ABC news for making false and misleading statements about their product. In particular, they objected to the repeated use of the the term “pink slime” instead of the LFTB, the products actual name.

The court case was highly anticipated. BPI could have potentially been awarded over $5 billion, but not long after opening arguments, the two sides settled for a reported $117 million, which was paid by ABCs parent company, Disney. While that’s way better then $5 billion, that is still a lot of money, and because the exact terms of the settlement were never disclosed, the number could actually be much higher. It is likely the largest settlement ever paid in a media defamation case in the US. It’s safe to say Disney would not have shelled out this amount of money if they felt confident in winning this case.

Today, all indications are that the pink slime market has recovered. As beef prices have risen in recent years, the use of this filler became more economical. Cargill Inc (which uses the citric acid process to disinfect it’s LFTB) now labels its products containing the filler as “contains finely textured beef.” Good for them.

So what’s the bottom line?

After all this: Zirnstein’s nickmane, the ABC News reports, market collapse and layoffs, lawsuit and settlement, we are pretty much right back were we started. Pink slime is in a high percentage of ground beef today, though exactly how high is unclear. There are no reputable reports questioning the safety of this product – experts agree that it’s safe – so the issue here is really about the consumer’s right to know.

Do consumers have the right to know that some ingredients in their food, while perfectly safe, are kind of gross? That seems reasonable, but the public and media response to pink slime suggest that maybe we don’t handle this type of information very well. The unmasking of pink slime as an ingredient in ground beef led to layoffs, lawsuits and general hysteria, but really nothing else besides giving the product a bad name:

So to answer K.B.’s original question, no pink slime is not dangerous. If you want to avoid it because you think the idea of eating it is gross, the best way to do so is to eat only USDA Organic beef, and avoid fast food restaurants or any other places that don’t specifically say that their meat it 100% USDA Organic.