“Tenderized, High Protein, Enriched Ground Beef”,

or “Hamburger fortified with steak tartare to enhance flavor”.

To be fair, that original article was the first time I’d heard of this stuff, and the article implied that this was a recent development and aimed mostly at schools.

In later weeks, I found out that this stuff has been widely used for years, including in grocery store hamburger that I’d been eating most of my life. I also learned more about the process (Jamie Oliver turned out to be full of shit). So I lowered the hackles a bit. I still miss real school kitchens, though.

But yeah, it’s still a fair cop. I should have done the research right up front instead of popping off based solely on the Huffington Post article. Wouldn’t be the first time.

I’d actually forgotten I’d done that first post, although the “Pink slime, it’s good for you” definitely should have rung a bell.

You slammed the government but made excuses for Safeway.

Pink slime. It’s good for you! March 7, 2012 1:09 pm by TB (Current Events)

So sit down, shut up, and eat your government food.

I remember my own youth, when schools had real kitchens, with big stainless steel utensils and actual cooks with little hairnets making food in them.

The real problem, of course, is not that questionable ideas pop out of bureaucracies. It happens all the time, private ones or public ones. The problem is when you have a system where a single bureaucracy can shove a questionable idea down the throat of an entire nation. Literally.

That was only two weeks ago. Forgotten already?

It was pointed out in a link in another comment here that this stuff has been in 70 percent of hamburger since the 80s. The ammonia treatment to raise the PH was designed to prevent e-coli, which was a big issue back then. A different company, Cargill, uses citric acid to lower the PH in a similar product.

The last time this subject came up three years ago the complaint wasn’t that it was gross, but that the process wasn’t killing 100 percent of the pathogens. They fixed it, and everyone went back to sleep.

I simply pointed out that I wasn’t freaked out that I’ve been eating it for three decades, and I’m not losing a lot of sleep over it being gone. I’m hoping this doesn’t mean we get the e-coli again, but since I always thoroughly cook hamburger, I don’t really sweat that either.

I may be predictable, but I don’t stampede like a herd of sheep every time the media sets off a firecracker.

Now we can all go downtown for lunch tomorrow and eat raw fish, octopus tentacles, and sea urchin eggs.

So its great when Safeway sells it, but not when its in free school lunches.

Tom, you are so predictable.

If it was supposed to be repulsive to dogs, our dog sure as heck didn’t act like it. Toss a bit to her, and it wouldn’t even hit the ground.

“Safeway will no longer purchase fresh or frozen ground beef for our stores’ meat departments that contains lean finely textured beef, Safeway said in a statement.”

(Emphasis mine).

More information here.