Pink Slime

Lean finely textured beef (LFTB)—also called finely textured beef, boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT), and colloquially known as pink slime—is a meat by-product used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats, as a filler, or to reduce the overall fat content of ground beef. As part of the production process, heat and centrifuges remove the fat from the meat in beef trimmings. The resulting paste, without the fat, is exposed to ammonium hydroxide or citric acid to kill bacteria. In 2001, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the product for limited human consumption. The product, when prepared using ammonia gas, is banned for human consumption in Canada, and production of all mechanically separated meat is prohibited in the European Union. In March 2012, an ABC News series about "pink slime" included claims that approximately 70% of ground beef sold in US supermarkets contained the additive at that time. Some companies and organizations stopped offering ground beef with the product. "Pink slime" was claimed by some originally to have been used as pet food and cooking oil and later approved for public consumption, but this was disputed in April 2012, by both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) administrator responsible for approving the product, and by Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), the largest US producer of the additive. In September 2012, BPI filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC for false claims about the product. By 2017, BPI was seeking $1.9 billion in damages. On June 28, 2017, The Walt Disney Company, ABC's parent company, paid at least US$177 million to settle the lawsuit. Counsel for BPI stated that this was at that time the largest amount ever paid in a media defamation case in the United States. The product is regulated in different manners in various regions. In the US, the product is allowed to be used in ground beef, and it can be used in other meat products such as beef-based processed meats. The use of ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and is included on the FDA's list of GRAS (generally recognized as safe) procedures, and is used in similar applications for numerous other food products, including puddings and baked goods. The product is not allowed in Canada due to the presence of ammonia, and is banned for human consumption in the European Union. Some consumer advocacy groups have promoted the elimination of the product or for mandatory disclosure of additives in beef, while others have expressed concerns about plant closures that occurred after the product received significant news media coverage. In December 2018, lean finely textured beef was reclassified as "ground beef" by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

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