By Elizabeth Weise

“Pink slime” will be off the menu this fall for schools in the National School Lunch Program that don’t want byproducts containing what’s known officially as “lean finely textured beef,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided.

The product has been commonly used for years, mostly in commercially prepared beef items. But several news sites wrote about it last week, including Huffington Post and ABC News, creating a wave of revulsion using the term “pink slime.” Then on March 6, a blog called TheLunchTray.com started an online petition asking the secretary of Agriculture to remove it from the school lunch program. By Thursday afternoon, there were 227,749 signatures — triggering more horrified reports.
In an announcement Thursday, the USDA said it “only purchases products for the school lunch program that are safe, nutritious and affordable — including all products containing lean finely textured beef.” But now it will adjust requirements so schools will be able to choose whether to order products “with or without Lean Finely Textured Beef.” Because it’s not labeled as such and isn’t distinguishable from the rest of the meat, until now schools wouldn’t have known whether the beef they ordered contained the product.
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On average, schools in the National School Lunch Program purchase 20% of their food through the USDA.
The controversy centers on using the low-cost ingredient in ground beef. It’s made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts. The bits are heated to about 100 degrees and spun to remove most of the fat. The lean mix then is compressed into blocks and can be ground into a ground beef mixture. The product, made by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc., also is exposed to a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.
There are no numbers on how prevalent the product is, and it does not have to be labeled as an ingredient.
Carl Custer, a retired USDA microbiologist, said after a 1990 study that it was safe to eat.
In fact, it’s probably safer than raw ground beef, Custer says, “if treated correctly to inactivate the microorganisms … that multiply during the low-temperature rendering process. In fact, it could be even safer than the raw beef muscle tissue that it may be added to.”
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University who wrote the book Safe Food, says the USDA is trying to manage a public relations problem, not a health concern: “Pink slime may be safe, nutritious, and cheap, but it’s yucky. It’s kind of like pet food. But for kids? I don’t think so.”