Oliver Exorcises Dog Food Grade Pink Slime From McDonald’s Burgers
McDonald’s denies that Oliver’s show had anything to do with discontinuing the use of ammonium hydroxide — “an ingredient in fertilizers, household cleaners and some roll-your-own explosives” — in its otherwise inedible scrap meat masquerading as McDonald’s hamburger.
M. Alex Johnson with MSNBC reports that besides being used as a household cleaner and in fertilizers, the compound ammonium hydroxide releases flammable vapors, and with the addition of certain acids, it can be turned into ammonium nitrate, a common component in homemade bombs.
“It’s also widely used in the food industry as an anti-microbial agent in meats and as a leavener in bread and cake products.”
Oliver’s campaign to get fast-food chains to stop using the pink slime began in April when he included a segment on what he called “pink slime” on his TV show. Oliver demonstrated how it’s made from scraps that are soaked in ammonium hydroxide and then ground into a pinkish form that looks something like hamburger meat.
Oliver claims the pink slime is in 70% of U.S. beef, out of both fast food restaurants and public school cafeterias.
“The use of treated scrap meat to me as a chef and a food lover is shocking,” Oliver said. “Basically we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it ‘fit’ for humans.”
The Daily has reported that the USDA plans to buy 7 million pounds of the pink slime for public school cafeterias in the next several months.
According to the Daily, the USDA buys the treated ground beef from Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota-based company that pioneered the practice of rinsing beef scraps and by-products normally relegated for dog food with ammonia hydroxide, a mixture of water and ammonia found effective in ridding meat of bacteria such as E. coli.
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