Pink slime
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 Pink slime kibble
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Giant rolls of pink slime being flash frozen
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 March 26, 2012. "'Pink Slime' Manufacturer Suspends Operations". ABC News. |
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March 16, 2012. "The Facts About Lean Finely Textured Beef". American Meat Institute |
"Pink slime" (a dysphemism for lean finely textured beef or LFTB,finely textured beef, and boneless lean beef trimmings or BLBT) is a meat-based product used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats, as a filler or to reduce the overall fat content of ground beef. In the production process, heat and centrifuges remove fat from the meat in beef trimmings. The resulting product is exposed to ammonia gas or citric acid to kill bacteria. In 2001, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the product for limited human consumption. It is banned for human consumption in the European Union.
In March 2012, an ABC News series about "pink slime" included claims that approximately 70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contained the additive at that time. Some companies and organizations stopped offering ground beef with the product. "Pink slime" was claimed by some originally to have been used as pet food and cooking oil and later approved for public consumption, but this was disputed in April 2012, by both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) administrator responsible for approving the product and Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), the largest U.S. producer of the additive. In September 2012 BPI filed a lawsuit against American Broadcasting Company for false claims about the product.
The product is regulated in different manners in various regions. In the United States, the product is allowed to be used in ground beef, and it can be used in other meat products such as beef-based processed meats. The product is banned in Canada due to the presence of ammonia in it, and it is banned for human consumption in the European Union. Some consumer advocacy groups have promoted the elimination of the product or for mandatory disclosure of additives in beef, while others have expressed concerns about plant closures that occurred after the product received significant news media coverage.
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