Pink Slime For School Lunch: Government Buying 7 Million Pounds Of Ammonia-Treated Meat For Meals

Pink slime... Doesn't that sound appetizing? Rumor has it this ammonia-treated meat may have been rejected from fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, and is now being served by the tons in our nations school lunch program. The USDA is purchasing 7 million pounds of "slime" for school lunches just weeks after the government announced new guidelines to ensure students are given healthier options for school meals. Officially named "Lean Beef Trimmings", this product is a combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens  like salmonella and E. coli. A member of the Food Safety Inspection Service said, "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."


In my opinion this "meat" looks and sounds disgusting. I can't imagine what else is in our school lunches that are served to a majority of our students everyday. You would think that healthy and nutritional food would have to be served to us, yet it only seems to be about how cheap the food is and not its benefit to the students. 


For more information, go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html?ref=mostpopular
Huffington Post. "Pink Slime For School Lunch: Government Buying 7 Million Pounds Of Ammonia-Treated Meat For Meals." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. N.p., 5 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html?ref=mostpopular>.