I don't understand the pink slime thing. I'm pretty sure the only reason people freaked out was because of Jamie Oliver's campaign against it.
I'm not against mechanically recovered meat. But I'd prefer children to get chunks of real meat cooked well than a squirt of slime and salt and flavourings in a crumb coating which is then fried and served with a sugary sauce. (ketchup, bbq, etc.) That combination of fat, salt, and sugar makes food "hyper palatable"[1] and, while much cheaper than "real" food contains little in the way of useful nutrition.
[1] Not my term. It's used to describe food where the balance of salt, sweet, and fat have been carefully balanced, and where the food is very easy to eat, because it's small or soft and easy to chew. See the progression from roast chicken, to deep fried chicken, to deep fried chicken with a salty coating and sauces, to "popcorn chicken" which are small chunks of meat, with a lot of fat-soaked salty coating.
You're making a good point here, but I'd watch out for this weasely use of "nutrition". Fats and sugars are where energy comes from. Food is made of nutrition. (Otherwise we call it fiber... or Olestra.)
What you mean, I think, is that these foods are designed for their macronutrient content, with a poor selection of micronutrients[0], which could lead to a deficiency if it were all you ate. Which is definitely still a big issue with pre-prepared foods, but it's a lot easier to talk about in an intellectually honest way.
[0] Of which salt is one.
2. If we don't trust the FDA to regulate based on health consequences, what the hell do we pay them for?
3. It is, in strict terms, ignorant to not know that ammonia is a component of animal metabolism which we produce and excrete naturally. Ground beef always has ammonia in it (albeit about a quarter as much as in treated meat).
2 - Straw man. We pay them for being better than the alternative. I don't trust them because, like most of our government, they are ultimately beholden to lobbying and special interest money.
3 - 4x the ammonia is not really a selling point, and in fact makes the case that rejecting this food out of caution is not ignorant.
Further, I don't think you can call it ignorant for people to reject eating foods that make them go "ick!" I could eat maggots. Is it ignorance that makes me choose not to, or personal taste?
2. Be that as it may, they are the people in charge of telling us whether or not food is safe to eat, and they said this was safe to eat. They also happen to know a lot more about this stuff than we do, which brings us to...
3. It is quite literal ignorance to say "Ammonia? I have a bottle of that under my sink! And they feed this to children?!" while ignorant of the fact that you exhale ammonia with every breath, and could eat the same amount of ammonia by simply making a bigger burger.
Not that that gives it an automatic pass, but it sets the bar for someone saying, "Yeah, we tested this and it's completely safe to eat" a hell of a lot lower.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06...
I don't doubt a sizable chunk of public opinion originated 'from the gut' but characterising all concern over the product as illogical / irrational is completely disingenuous.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/25/us-food-slime-scie...
> characterising all concern over the product as illogical / irrational is completely disingenuous.
Frankly... no, I don't think it is. In absence of any documented health issues, in absence of any reason to suspect danger, what is the logical, rational reason for concern?
You may not like it[1], and if enough people don't like the idea that may be cause to stop selling it, but calling it unsafe is definitely both ignorant and irrational.
[0] http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/fcnDetailNavigatio...
[1] Which is also pretty irrational, because it's pretty much the same thing as ground beef, just slightly more so... but no accounting for taste.
I simply highlighted that concern over the product originated from a USDA microbiologist. That fact refutes your characterisation of all opposition as entirely 'hysterical'.
At no point have I said ammonium hydroxide is unsafe, or that the product is unsafe. I simply pointed out that a qualified scientist raised concerns very early on with the product being approved for human consumption.
He did not. I don't think you read that article very closely.
"It looks like pink slime. That is what I said." Asked if he and his family still eat hamburgers, Zirnstein sighed. "The labels aren't clear, so we don't eat it. That's the thing," he said. "It isn't freaking labeled."
He never said it wasn't fit for human consumption, because it was and is. He just thought it was gross. His issue, which is a reasonable criticism, is that the product was being sold as plain ground beef despite having undergone additional processing.
I'm sorry if my tone is very absolute, but that's because this is a very clear-cut, black and white issue. Ammonium hydroxide is a GRAS chemical which is harmless to put on meat and renders it safe for consumption. You may want to not eat overly-processed beef, and you may rightly argue you have a right to know, but any health or safety concerns are absolutely specious.
However my position has simply been that the response to pink slime was not entirely irrational / hysterical, considering it originated in the private communication of a Government Microbiologist.
I'd also refute your assertion that any health or safety concerns are absolutely specious. It's a very low-quality meat product that is otherwise not fit for human consumption, so on an industrial scale any rational consumer could see that there are potential negative health consequences from some failure in the production line. Approved industrial procedures like feeding cows MBM have triggered BSE in the past, so a natural wariness is entirely reasonable and rational.
The emotional response might certainly outweigh the actual risk, but some of the responses in this thread seem to cast concern / opposition in the same light as tribal people scared that photographs steal souls.
I'm not saying that's not worthy of concern-- of course, it is. It's just the hysteria surrounding this processed food in particular, especially the "ammonia bath" meme which even made its way to HN, that really irritated me (as has probably been obvious :)
I suppose it became the perfect poster child to represent the general issue some groups have with modern food production in general (which I'm partly sympathetic to) but I'd agree that making false claims about food safety helps nobody.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Ammonia-leak-at-ice-cr...
1) Pictures of mechanically-separated meat (the pink soft-serve) misattributed as LFTB.
2) Hysteria around the use of ammonia, which people read as "poison" rather than "food-safe antimicrobial agent".
It was a dark day for reasoned discourse.