Oh and ooh and yuk. Pink slime? Not sure about what it is, but don’t like it. No matter what it is I still don’t like it. And I know that once I find out what it is I will not like it even more than I didn’t like it before I knew .
Is it a new horror movie, like the one with the green goo spilling all over the city? Is it a new TV show like The Hulk, who is green and has super, amazing strength? The actor, Lou Ferrigno, is now a contestant on Donald Trump’s TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” Perhaps it’s a new super power woman who turns pink with power, and reveals all the bad guys on Wall Street. Could it be a cute animal super hero who turns vats of a gooey pink slime over the bad guys, disabling them until the police arrive?
But pink slime is worse than that. It is an additive that manufacturers add to ground beef. You know, ground beef as in hamburgers of the future?
The additive is a low cost ammonia-treated ground beef filler. It is perfectly safe, says the Agriculture Department. I believe everything government agencies tell us, don’t you? Doesn’t everybody? It is sold to schools for use in school lunches and sold to supermarkets to enhance their patties. What makes it pink? More color additives, or naturally caused elements that come from animals and turn everything pink because it once was red. Blood red. Need I spell it out more clearly?
As I read the news and realize that time is closing in on lunch I invite you all to join me in a nice, juicy hamburger at Mac Donald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, or any other place of your choice.
Or maybe I can tempt you with a bowl of crisp green salad?
MorristownMemos 
Comments on: "PINK SLIME" (24)
Perfectly safe? Hmmmm. I doubt it.
Subhan Zein
Perfectly safe? I’d like to offer all of the wonderful people at the Agriculture Department (and everyone involved in putting pink slime into our tummies) a delicious ammonia martini. Let’s see what they say then.
That’s a great idea. It can be marketed as an exclusive martini, available only to special government employees. It’ll be a status symbol.
Ronnie, I’ve been deeply concerned about a few things I’m glad my kids are grown and past: one is what is being fed to them in schools. And though we always made our kids lunches to take to school, eating at the cafeteria was a treat once in awhile, especially in winter when eating a hot meal seemed sensible and nourishing. And yet.
Also the profusion of electronics. Three year-olds with iPhones. I am so glad my kids and I never had this challenge. They learned to look others in the eye, talk about things, and respect times and places for human interaction. They have the good sense to turn their phones off in restaurants and not to use them as interruptions during conversations with others.
The last (but perhaps not) is the dissolution of cursive writing in the schools. Are we really going to raise a nation of virtual illiterates and zombies who can’t function at the simple human-to-human level? I don’t know about you, but I’m more than a little concerned …
Thanks for the post! 😉
These are real concerns. I don’t know the answers, because once technology is unleashed there is no turning back.
True enough!
SALAD! And i heard another terrible thing the other day. A girl i know works in an old folks home, Not the Old Codgers, and the State has not been paying them their allowance so the home has had to cut down and the food was first to get the chop, she said it is just terrible, meat dishes with no meat in them, all processed cheap breads and no eggs, or fresh greens..she said no wonder half them are sick. I said so basically they are eating prison food. She agreed. She takes food for the residents with her to work. Now how can that be right!? Not only schools and supermarkets, what are they feeding the old people who cannot choose!? c
That is criminal. Those poor old people who worked hard all their lives deserve to be treated with more concern and respect.
When I was in school, I recall being told that we all would be perfectly safe if we just ducked under our desks during a nuclear explosion. (I think that was the threat we worried about at the time.)
“The additive is a low cost ammonia-treated ground beef filler. It is perfectly safe, says the Agriculture Department. I believe everything government agencies tell us, don’t you? Doesn’t everybody?” Yeah … right. No thanks, I’ll pass. Can’t believe they served this to our kids in school.
We would be shocked to find out all the ways they try to stretch their food budgets.
pink slime in our meat, phosphate and chlorine in our water: but we are well assured that
“all is safe”. perhaps this a new approach to dealing with our health care crisis.
we will all “safely” pass away at the right time or is it “just in time”?
Cynically yours
Harvey
Dear Cynically,
Since I haven’t an ounce of cynicism I cannot imagine in my wildest imagination what you mean.
Can we arrange a private meeting so you can tell me all about it?
Great idea about becoming a vegetarian, until we learn what pesticides they’re using to spray the vegetables.
That is just frightening – not surprising, just frightening. However, the mad buggers are going to carry on eating crap like that until they’re wheeled into your hospital to have most of their innards removed. Sadly, i spent quite a lot of time photographing those products in my previous life in London.
Really? I would love to know more about that experience; have you written about it?
Or maybe I’ll just have a hot dog . . . 😉
Yes, you’re right to choose a healthier meal.
Hi,
OMG that is disgusting, the people that came up with this needs a lesson or two or maybe three.
My father always warned me about eating ground beef because all the leftover cuts are mixed into the chopper. But as bad as that is, I don’t think they had pink slime in those days.
I would love to know whose idea it was to mix ammonia into a food filler. If that is the idea they went with to make this filler, I shudder to think about the ideas they rejected.
You’re right. May I join you in the shuddering?
Please do. No one likes to shudder alone 🙂
Ammonia treated? That’s crazy. How long have we been eating this stuff? Another good reason to become a vegatarian. Sheesh! Luckily most kids don’t eat the school lunches!
I asked the people at Trader Joe’s about it. Wanted to know if it was in the only-4%-fat ground beef. Response? Huh? In this wide world of the net, I wonder if there’s a site http://www.pinkslime.yuk