What You Need to Know About Pink Slime

WARNING:  THIS IS GROSS, BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW IT.

Pink slime is not a theory or possibility; it’s a fact. There is a picture below that I’m sure you’ve seen. But read on to see how that comes about…..it’s not pretty and may change the way you see some of the foods you eat.

You as the consumer have a right to know the facts behind what goes into your body.

Maybe you figure that what you don’t know won’t hurt you, but once you know what pink slime actually is, you may think otherwise…

The Origins of Pink Slime

You’ve heard of “cuts” of beef, right? You know the various cuts, such as:

• Chuck
• T-bone
• Sirloin
• Round
• Rib-eye
• Flank

You’ve seen these cuts, in their whole form, at the supermarket or butcher shop.  You know exactly what you’re getting because you can see it.

There are nine sections of the steer from where these cuts originate.  The steer is broken down so that these nine sections of cuts can be obtained.  However, the breakdown isn’t as clear-cut as you may think.  It leaves behind remnants that include tissue other than the pure meat (muscle) that you can see in a whole cut such as a T-bone steak.

These “trimmings” that result after the steer is broken down are unsightly and hang with a lot of whitish gunk. Have you ever seen medical photos of stripped down corpses to show the soft-tissue anatomy? You can see the muscle, and then there’s this whitish, yellowish, tattered stuff.

Well, much of the “trimmings” are made up of this other stuff, such as connective tissue, cartilage and bone. The “trimmings” mostly come from the cavity between the solid chunks of meat and the guts of the cow. These sinew bits cannot be made into a cut.  The beef industry wants to sell as much of the steer as possible, to get the most for their purchase of the steer.

These trimmings are made into dog food, no technology added.  This is because the digestive system of dogs can handle a lot more insult than that of humans.

The same stuff that’s used for dog food gets used for human food, but not before technology gets involved.

The unsightly chunks of sinew, cartilage, bone, fascia and other musculoskeletal system innards are tossed into a centrifuge. The centrifuge spins around so fast that the centrifugal force separates the fat from whatever actual meat there is in the trimmings.

The product, minus the separated fat, is bathed in ammonia and water to kill pathogens like E. coli.

The pinkish slimy looking gunk is then drained. It’s then fed through a machine that churns out on the other end what appears to be ground beef.

The cheapest result of this process literally goes to the dogs.  What’s left after that ends up in people food. The government allows beef to contain up to 15 percent of this pink slime to “stretch” it.

Don’t assume that the next package of ground beef, chuck or sirloin that you buy doesn’t have any pink slime in it just because the package doesn’t list ammonia as an ingredient; the government does not require the beef industry to list ammonia as an ingredient. Thus, you can be ingesting pink slime and ammonia and not even know it.  It’s in 17 percent of ground beef products.

You can avoid pink slime by avoiding fast food burgers, plus burgers from more upscale establishments – you just don’t know what’s in them. If you want ground meat, ask a butcher to grind up a whole cut right before your eyes.

The secret is out: pink slime.  You deserve better than to eat something with this name. To find out what else you may be eating without even knowing it, and to help rid your body of the harmful toxins that come with it, join us in our 21-Day Detox Challenge.