- Feb 7, 2004
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ABC News has the learned that on Thursday the U.S. Department of Agriculture will announce that starting this fall, schools will be able to choose whether or not they buy hamburger that contains lean finely textured beef known as " pink slime."
The announcement comes one week after ABC News reported on the beef filler commonly known as "pink slime," which is found in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets.
"It kind of looks like play dough," said Kit Foshee, who, until 2001, was a corporate quality assurance manager at Beef Products Inc., the company that makes "pink slime." "It's pink and frozen, it's not what the typical person would consider meat."
Foshee said that he was fired by BPI after complaining about the process used to make the filler, and the company's claims about it. Since then, he has spoken out against the product.
J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, defended the practice as a way to safely use what otherwise would be wasted.
"BLBT (Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings) is a sustainable product because it recovers lean meat that would otherwise be wasted," he said in a statement.
However, the substance, critics said, is more like gelatin than meat, and before BPI found a way to use it by disinfecting the trimmings with ammonia, it was sold only to dog food or cooking oil suppliers.
But Boyle said, "The beef tri
http://news.yahoo.com/pink-slime-choice-schools-230530972--abc-news.html
The announcement comes one week after ABC News reported on the beef filler commonly known as "pink slime," which is found in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets.
"It kind of looks like play dough," said Kit Foshee, who, until 2001, was a corporate quality assurance manager at Beef Products Inc., the company that makes "pink slime." "It's pink and frozen, it's not what the typical person would consider meat."
Foshee said that he was fired by BPI after complaining about the process used to make the filler, and the company's claims about it. Since then, he has spoken out against the product.
J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, defended the practice as a way to safely use what otherwise would be wasted.
"BLBT (Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings) is a sustainable product because it recovers lean meat that would otherwise be wasted," he said in a statement.
However, the substance, critics said, is more like gelatin than meat, and before BPI found a way to use it by disinfecting the trimmings with ammonia, it was sold only to dog food or cooking oil suppliers.
But Boyle said, "The beef tri
http://news.yahoo.com/pink-slime-choice-schools-230530972--abc-news.html