Schools in seven states couldn't stay away from the beef additive - by Lindsay Abrams
Excerpts:
. . . the ammonia-treated meat product in cafeterias.
This time last year, only Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota were feeding their schoolchildren pink slime-tainted beef.
But in the past week, according to government data obtained by POLITICO, schools in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas resumed placing orders for it with the USDA. . . .
. . . Considered by the beef industry to be an impressive innovation, lean finely textured beef is made from the remnant scraps of cattle carcasses that were once deemed too fatty to go into human food.
The scraps are heated and centrifuged to reclaim bits of muscle and then the product is treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli before being mixed into ground beef.
Currently, USDA allows these beef products to contain up to 15 percent lean finely textured beef without labeling requirements, but last year the department said it would allow voluntary labeling.
Using pink slime reduces the price of ground beef by about 3 percent . . . . -