Pink slime saga will not end well for producers
I've lived in Iowa all my life and I owe it to the agriculture community a measure of gratitude for sustaining an economy here so that I can be gainfully employed my entire adult life. But should that mean I can't speak openly about the elephant in the room?
Would I be a bad Iowan if I was critical of its producers? Listen to any politician or company or industry communication director and you're going to hear some one-sided dialog. But as an ordinary resident, that's not my job.
As an individual I have a right to take the available information and assess it with as much critical thinking as I can muster on a given day and form an opinion about it. Unfortunately it's well known that the industries see their jobs as managing public perception through spin in the name of sustaining our economy here.
As a lifelong Iowan, I've long known you don't ask what's in a hot dog. I've long known that hamburger consists of about the lowest grade meat imaginable. It probably has a high connective tissue count. That's why it's ground up; to break those tissues to make it more palatable. You expect a certain amount of bovine gut matter to be there that you presume to be incidental to the meat cutting process.
What one does not expect is that they take the undesirable trimmings offsite to a facility that specializes in engineering those trimmings into some kind of substance that is then added back into the ground beef as a filler. That's obviously to save money, but it also serves to let the beef company advertise a lower fat content that is free from bacteria. It's now a leaner product and is safe.
But as is always the case when the conversation is controlled by the industry, you have to ask what are the yeah-but rebuttals that are left out.
"We have just begun to fight," said Gov. Terry Brandstad (R-Ia) about the presumed smear campaign being waged against the non-meat filler product being added to some 70% of all ground beef sold in the US.
Branstad was dancing as he called on college student at Texas A&M and Iowa State University to counter what "Hollywood and the media elites and the people spreading these...misinformation..."
He now says wants a congressional investigation into how this image-busting smear campaign got started.
US Rep. Steve King (R-Ia) thinks sworn testimony will repair the damage caused by what the governor calls a conspiracy to hurt producers.
The media is helping. The Des Moines Register refers to "pink slime" as "trimmings from other cuts of meat." Local television news has been covering the story nightly, but has yet to suggest the additive is anything other than meat.
But the glaring omission -- what nobody bothers mentioning -- is what precisely the misinformation is.
Yes, people have called it "pink slime," which I stipulate paints the additive in an unappetizing light. I'm told that images purporting to represent the substance have not been accurate. I am also aware that there have been exaggerations about how "lean, finely textured beef" is exposed to ammonia.
BFI in Sioux City, Iowa was treated to a gathering of beef industry supporters who have launched a campaign with the rallying cry, "Dude, it's Beef".
True. But it ain't exactly meat, is it?
This is a war without an enemy. Nobody wants the beef economy to suffer unduly. There is no upside to saying things that are untrue about the food we eat and rely on for our livelihood. But I hope we can talk about it candidly.
We've been told it's not dangerous. But what precisely does lean, finely textured beef do to advance human or animal nutrition?
The sad fact is that the louder the governor of Iowa speaks on behalf of his generous campaign donors, the more attention is drawn to a substance in our food that is almost universally repulsive.
It seems to me the problem is the fact that they've been using filler to artificially lower the production costs of ground beef and passing it on to unwitting consumers as pure and good.
Well it's not good. And it's not honest. This is the most vile and disgusting part of the bovine. Salvage matter, if you will. It's cow guts pulverized into an unrecognizable paste, which has been sanitized with ammonia (Cargill at least uses citrus).
Yes, it's beef. No, it's not meat.
In some cases, it's been reported that the actual pink slime content in a typical pound of ground beef is as high as 30%.
No one I've talked to about this wants pink slime deliberately added to their diet at any cost savings.
The bottom line is that we don't have to make up lies about finely textured beef because there are plenty of accurate truths available that are positively disgusting to the consumer.
I'm mortified that there are entire plants dedicated to turning the most awful part of the cow into filler to stretch hamburger.
And then there's the labeling issue. The plant owners say it's all beef, therefore requires no disclaimers.
But wouldn't people want to know about this stuff? Yes. And it's unpleasant. And growing up in Iowa I've learned there's a lot of unpleasant things you can learn about how food makes it from the farm to the dining room tables of America. Hot dogs come to mind. "If you knew how they were made, you'd never eat another."
Shortly after the story blew up, I bought 10 lbs. of 80% lean ground beef at Hy-Vee for $2.89 a pound. I did this knowing it probably contained 15% of the most unspeakable parts of the cow. Call me disgusting, but it's beef, afterall.
I only wish the beef producers had the guts to be honest about their products.
I want to see farm-of-origin labeling. The FDA demands to know, but they keep it a secret from the people who actually buy the meat. Why do they need to keep this a secret? I suppose there could be a plausibly legitimate reason for that, but I can't think of one.
The corn-based feed they gorge the cos with at feedlots makes for more fat on the meat, which is said to produce a tasty steak when grilled. In the west, they'll tell you grass-fed beef tastes so much better than midwest's corn-fed variety.
I'm of the opinion there's a lot we're not supposed to know because it's not terribly appetizing to contemplate at the dinner table.
We know the cruelty imposed by meat producers, but Iowa just passed a law to put down those who would expose the suffering.
I would rather go on believing my hamburger is not the best cut of meat,, but that the part therein that isn't considered meat is inconsequential But instead we learn that they actually ptoduce the additive offsite and ship it in to the meat plants to deliberately dilute the product with salvage matter.
The real danger to the beef industry isn't that people are spreading lies or misinformation. What's going to change the business of beef is that consumers now know more accurate information about what goes into the Big Mac that just doesn't sound good to them, which will eventually affect demand for their products.
I'll give you this: cow guts might in fact qualify as beef, by definition. But let's be honest. It doesn't even qualify as a low-grade cut of meat...dude!
Would I be a bad Iowan if I was critical of its producers? Listen to any politician or company or industry communication director and you're going to hear some one-sided dialog. But as an ordinary resident, that's not my job.
As an individual I have a right to take the available information and assess it with as much critical thinking as I can muster on a given day and form an opinion about it. Unfortunately it's well known that the industries see their jobs as managing public perception through spin in the name of sustaining our economy here.
As a lifelong Iowan, I've long known you don't ask what's in a hot dog. I've long known that hamburger consists of about the lowest grade meat imaginable. It probably has a high connective tissue count. That's why it's ground up; to break those tissues to make it more palatable. You expect a certain amount of bovine gut matter to be there that you presume to be incidental to the meat cutting process.
What one does not expect is that they take the undesirable trimmings offsite to a facility that specializes in engineering those trimmings into some kind of substance that is then added back into the ground beef as a filler. That's obviously to save money, but it also serves to let the beef company advertise a lower fat content that is free from bacteria. It's now a leaner product and is safe.
But as is always the case when the conversation is controlled by the industry, you have to ask what are the yeah-but rebuttals that are left out.
"We have just begun to fight," said Gov. Terry Brandstad (R-Ia) about the presumed smear campaign being waged against the non-meat filler product being added to some 70% of all ground beef sold in the US.
Branstad was dancing as he called on college student at Texas A&M and Iowa State University to counter what "Hollywood and the media elites and the people spreading these...misinformation..."
He now says wants a congressional investigation into how this image-busting smear campaign got started.
US Rep. Steve King (R-Ia) thinks sworn testimony will repair the damage caused by what the governor calls a conspiracy to hurt producers.
The media is helping. The Des Moines Register refers to "pink slime" as "trimmings from other cuts of meat." Local television news has been covering the story nightly, but has yet to suggest the additive is anything other than meat.
But the glaring omission -- what nobody bothers mentioning -- is what precisely the misinformation is.
Yes, people have called it "pink slime," which I stipulate paints the additive in an unappetizing light. I'm told that images purporting to represent the substance have not been accurate. I am also aware that there have been exaggerations about how "lean, finely textured beef" is exposed to ammonia.
BFI in Sioux City, Iowa was treated to a gathering of beef industry supporters who have launched a campaign with the rallying cry, "Dude, it's Beef".
True. But it ain't exactly meat, is it?
This is a war without an enemy. Nobody wants the beef economy to suffer unduly. There is no upside to saying things that are untrue about the food we eat and rely on for our livelihood. But I hope we can talk about it candidly.
We've been told it's not dangerous. But what precisely does lean, finely textured beef do to advance human or animal nutrition?
The sad fact is that the louder the governor of Iowa speaks on behalf of his generous campaign donors, the more attention is drawn to a substance in our food that is almost universally repulsive.
It seems to me the problem is the fact that they've been using filler to artificially lower the production costs of ground beef and passing it on to unwitting consumers as pure and good.
Well it's not good. And it's not honest. This is the most vile and disgusting part of the bovine. Salvage matter, if you will. It's cow guts pulverized into an unrecognizable paste, which has been sanitized with ammonia (Cargill at least uses citrus).
Yes, it's beef. No, it's not meat.
In some cases, it's been reported that the actual pink slime content in a typical pound of ground beef is as high as 30%.
No one I've talked to about this wants pink slime deliberately added to their diet at any cost savings.
The bottom line is that we don't have to make up lies about finely textured beef because there are plenty of accurate truths available that are positively disgusting to the consumer.
I'm mortified that there are entire plants dedicated to turning the most awful part of the cow into filler to stretch hamburger.
And then there's the labeling issue. The plant owners say it's all beef, therefore requires no disclaimers.
But wouldn't people want to know about this stuff? Yes. And it's unpleasant. And growing up in Iowa I've learned there's a lot of unpleasant things you can learn about how food makes it from the farm to the dining room tables of America. Hot dogs come to mind. "If you knew how they were made, you'd never eat another."
Shortly after the story blew up, I bought 10 lbs. of 80% lean ground beef at Hy-Vee for $2.89 a pound. I did this knowing it probably contained 15% of the most unspeakable parts of the cow. Call me disgusting, but it's beef, afterall.
I only wish the beef producers had the guts to be honest about their products.
I want to see farm-of-origin labeling. The FDA demands to know, but they keep it a secret from the people who actually buy the meat. Why do they need to keep this a secret? I suppose there could be a plausibly legitimate reason for that, but I can't think of one.
The corn-based feed they gorge the cos with at feedlots makes for more fat on the meat, which is said to produce a tasty steak when grilled. In the west, they'll tell you grass-fed beef tastes so much better than midwest's corn-fed variety.
I'm of the opinion there's a lot we're not supposed to know because it's not terribly appetizing to contemplate at the dinner table.
We know the cruelty imposed by meat producers, but Iowa just passed a law to put down those who would expose the suffering.
I would rather go on believing my hamburger is not the best cut of meat,, but that the part therein that isn't considered meat is inconsequential But instead we learn that they actually ptoduce the additive offsite and ship it in to the meat plants to deliberately dilute the product with salvage matter.
The real danger to the beef industry isn't that people are spreading lies or misinformation. What's going to change the business of beef is that consumers now know more accurate information about what goes into the Big Mac that just doesn't sound good to them, which will eventually affect demand for their products.
I'll give you this: cow guts might in fact qualify as beef, by definition. But let's be honest. It doesn't even qualify as a low-grade cut of meat...dude!
