Weekend reads: Is there pink slime in your ground beef?

Food news and items of interest from around the Web for your weekend reading.

When I buy beef, I almost always purchase it from Hillacres Pride, a Lancaster County, Pa., farm that sells at my local farmers market and makes a monthly delivery to South Jersey during the market’s off-season. Today on the farm’s Facebook page, they wrote this.

 

Rest assured that our ground beef is 100% ground beef and does not contain pink slime. I am so glad we have our meat to eat!

 

Pink slime, the parts of cows that are usually considered inedible but are made edible by a chemical treatment, was nixed by McDonalds' recently. The USDA hasn’t gotten rid of it, though, and pink slime was back in the news this week.

 

• ABC News reports that 70 percent of supermarket ground beef contains pink slime. I had no idea. Now I’m really glad I know where my ground beef comes from.

• It’s not just in supermarket ground beef. The USDA is buying 7 million pounds of beef that contains pink slime for our nation's schools according to Yahoo. That’s one really great reason to pack your kids’ lunches.

• The Consumerist explains what pink slime is and how it is created.

• You’ll probably see a photo of what looks like pink soft serve ice cream floating around the Internet and connected to many articles about pink slime.The Washington Post says that photo is not actually what pink slime looks like. That photo has been circulating for years and is actually associated with chicken not beef.

 

Enjoy your weekend!

 

http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/weekend-reads-is-there-pink-slime-in-your-ground-beef 

Less 'pink slime' may mean more poorly treated cattle

Many grocery stores are getting rid of beef with added lean, finely textured beef due to consumer concern. Score one for consumers — but not for the cows.

Over the past couple of days, the list of grocery stores that have said they will stop selling beef with added lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) — also known as “pink slime” — has grown.

 

Kroger, Stop & Shop, Food Lion, Supervalue and Safeway all announced their intentions to stop selling beef with the filler because of customer concerns. Other stores, including Whole Foods, A&P, and Costco, are coming out to announce that their beef has never had LFTB. My grocery store of choice, Wegmans, made the statement on its website that the company's organic and “Food You Feel Good About” ground beef does contain “lean beef trimmings.”

 

The beef industry is getting worried that the decisions by these stores to sell “pink slime-less” beef could lead to an increase in ground beef prices. The American Meat Institute said in the short term, these stores may see an increased cost for ground beef. The amount of the increase was not specified.

 

As I was reading about this, I was pleased to see more evidence that the voices of consumers are finally being heard and taken into consideration. Then, I read that the American Meat Institute estimates that an additional 1.5 million head of cattle will be necessary to create the meat that will take the place of “pink slime.”

 

Ugh. One problem solved; another one created. About 1.5 million more cows, many of them raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). Cattle raised this way are usually kept in inhumane conditions, fed food that they wouldn’t naturally eat, and pumped full of antibiotics. CAFOs create many environmental problems, too.

 

I don’t have any solutions to this problem, but I do have some advice. Eat less beef. And, when you do choose to eat beef, try to get it from a local farm where you know the cows have been raised and fed in a humane manner. 

 

Has all the “pink slime” talk lately changed the way you think about and buy beef?

 

http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/less-pink-slime-may-mean-more-poorly-treated-cattle

Did Adam name all the animals in one day?

We always need to read carefully and not add our own ideas into the Bible. For example, some people claim that Adam couldn’t have possibly named all the living creatures in one day, so they think the creation of Eve, which occurred after this event, had to take place later.

However, Genesis 2:20 says, “Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.” It doesn’t say anything about his naming sea creatures or creeping things.

Also, “all cattle,” and “every beast of the field” (Genesis 2:20) may not mean the same thing as every “beast of the earth” (Genesis 1:24); it was probably a smaller set that represented all types of beasts of the earth.

Adam only named the animals God brought to him, and besides, he had most of the day to do it. Before the Fall, Adam’s brain was perfect, so he shouldn’t have had problems coming up with names. It has been estimated that only a few hours would be needed to name the animals.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/