ugolino and his sons, by jean-baptiste carpeauxa. a society that devours its children is no society at all… 

clip from chef jamie oliver and his now-defunct TV show. a must see. “schools across the US are to ‘be allowed’ to stop serving the so-called ‘pink slime’ beef to their pupils at mealtimes.” notice the word ‘allowed,’ which in this case, refers to the fact that until now US schools had no other choice but to serve ‘dog food’ (also referred to as pink slime) to children.

so what is “pink slime”? it is a term reportedly coined by a microbiologist working for the US government — it is a form of “lean beef” formed by reclaiming the small parts of meat, which are otherwise trashed, or at best turned into dog food. it contains leftover bits that include inner parts of the cavity where the guts are and generally contain salmonella and E. coli. pink slime is only tuned into somewhat edible food by dousing it with the chemical ammonium (like bleach) to kill the bacteria. and then mixed into 70% of US consumed ground beef (that would include almost all fast foods, most restaurants, and even supermarket and clearly school meats) as a thinner to increase profits!

last year, british celebrity chef jamie oliver publicly criticized the product on his US TV show (the show has since been cancelled – most definitely due to the strong beef lobby in the US). the revelation prompted a popular outcry, and even mcdonald’s recently said it would phase out the use of “pink slime” in its burgers which it called 100% beef (well that is kinda correct) with the blessing of USDA.

the USDA, a body charged with the protection of US citizens and paid for by our taxes, “continues to affirm the safety of lean finely textured beef product for all consumers and urges customers to consult science based information on the safety and quality of this product,”

how pink slime is made: “the beef is spun in a centrifuge to separate the meat from the fat, before the final product is treated with a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas to kill any bacteria. it is produced in bulk by a firm in north dakota”. source bbc. by dd