SCIENTIST WHO COINED “PINK SLIME” RELUCTANT WHISTLEBLOWER

The term “pink slime” is now an infamous term used by news media to describe the mix of fatty and connective tissue (called trimmings) ground up and treated with ammonium hydroxide and blended with ground beef. No clinical studies have been conducted to test the safety of this product on humans, as would a new drug. The beef industry argues that it is safe as manufactured because it has no bacteria. But a product merely being free of bacteria does not speak to its potentially harmful affect on the human body in other ways. The term pink slime was actually coined by Gerald Zirnstein,a microbiologist at the US Department of Agriculture and he first made the reference to pink slime in emails internal emails which later became public when so much outrage was vented by consumer groups. It turns out that trimmings are actually fat, sinew, bloody effluvia and entrail meat tainted with feces that are ground up and treated with ammonia. Pink slime was never approved for hamburger, he says. Ironically, Zirnstein grew up working in a meat plant in Kansas and notes now that the issue came to his attention over a decade ago in 2002, when he worked as a USDA food scientist assigned to a project to determine what was being put into ground beef. The beef industry calls it “finely textured beef and said it was largely trimmings used for cat food. There are no labels on the hamburger which contains the product.