'Pink Slime': Too Disgusting For McDonald's But Good Enough For Schoolkids

Flickr user aMichiganMom

Not pink slime, but pink and slimy.

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It had seemed that "pink slime"--the gross-out term for ammonium hydroxide-treated beef cuts--would die a slow, toxic death after McDonald's announced it was cutting it out of its products back in January. 

Nope. It's back. And this time, it will be served in school lunches.

The USDA plans to buy 7 million pounds of the slime (officially called Lean Beef Trimmings) for the national school lunch program, according to a report by tablet newspaper The Daily. In a statement, the department said that all of its ground beef purchases "meet the highest standard for food safety."

Ammonium hydroxide is added to beef scraps to kill off bacteria such as E. Coli. Beef Products Inc., which manufactures the ground beef, said in a statement that the chemical is a "natural compound" that's "widely used in the processing of numerous foods."

Tell that to Jamie Oliver and others who've crusaded against the not-quite-meat meat. A Change.org petition calls for the USDA to stop using pink slime in school food, stating "it is simply wrong to feed our children connective tissues and beef scraps that were, in the past, destined for use in pet food and rendering and were not considered fit for human consumption." 


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