Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 3/19/12
On the heels of Friday’s support by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association for the use of lean finely textured beef (LFTB), media outlets, food activists and bloggers alike continue to drive the debate over “pink slime” – and threaten to drive some meat companies out of business.
Beef Products Inc., the company at the center of the firestorm, has launched a web site decrying the sensationalism of the issue and designed to educate the public on its products.
Although some industry experts have voiced concern that the meat industry has lost the public relations war over LFTB, a few voices outside the industry are rushing to its support.
Nancy Donley, the president of non-profit public health organization STOP Foodborne Illness whose son died of hemolytic uremic syndrome caused by eating E. coli O157:H7-contaminated ground beef in 1993, has come to the defense of BPI.
In an opinion piece posted online by Food Safety News, she takes offense at the use of the term “pink slime” as “completely false and incendiary.”
“The use of ammonia hydroxide in minute amounts during processing improves the safety of the product and is routinely used throughout the food industry. There are many types of interventions including food-grade antimicrobial sprays which are used on all manner of foods,” she writes. “Some of these things may sound icky and gross, especially when inaccurately portrayed. These interventions are necessary in ridding meat of deadly pathogens and are required to prove they pose no threats to consumers. Companies would be prohibited by the USDA and FDA to use substances that could be harmful in human consumption.”
Meanwhile, further processors and retailers who buy LFTB are in the sights of activists, bloggers and even main stream media. For example, TheSan Francisco Chroniclepublished a list first compiled by News Corp iPad news publicationThe Dailyof major retailers that do and do not sell beef ground in their stores containing LFTB, as well as those that sell pre-packaged branded ground beef from processors that do use it.
It’s not over yet. National Public Radio on Friday acknowledged that its reports “mischaracterize” the views of some bloggers by focusing on the use of ammonium hydroxide in the product rather than on the concern that the source of the product is highly pathogenic.
This could spread consumer concern well beyond BPI’s ammonium hydroxide-treated product. Ammonium hydroxide isn’t the only intervention used in producing LFTB. Cargill, for example, uses citric acid; just one of several alternatives to treat what it calls finely textured beef (FTB) to reduce the pathogen load.
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