Thursday, April 12, 2012

Pink Slime Got Slimed

Pink Slime got slimed

Of course it did; Americans don’t eat slime.

Humans are omnivores. Americans will certainly eat almost anything, almost anything.

We don’t eat snails, but consume escargot.

We don’t like duck/goose liver, but some go for foie gras

We dissect frogs, but leave the frog legs to the French.

Sushi yes; slime no.

Big Macs, Buffalo burgers, double bacon cheese burgers, chicken burgers, fat burgers, fish burgers, garden burgers, grease burgers, guacamole burgers, hamburgers, Kobe burgers, monster burgers, mushroom burgers, ostrich burgers, Philadelphia Cheesesteaks, Salisbury steaks, salmon burgers, Santa Fe burgers, sirloin burgers, six dollar burgers, sliders, sourdough Jack cheeseburgers, soy burgers, teriyaki burgers, tofu burgers, turkey burgers, whoppers

But not slime burgers.

We consume chop suey, crab cakes, hot dogs, meat loaf, sausage, TV dinners, and even Sloppy Joes, but not pink slime.

We go for grinders, Hoagies, Po Boys, and subs, but not pink slime.

Some like their meat pink, but not ground beef. The risks of E Coli or salmonella are too great. Pink, slime and beef don’t go together.

We may go for gummy worms, and enjoy the slime at Nick studios, but not pink slime.

SPAM has reacquired some cache, but pink slime won’t.

Popeye glorified spinach, and Rocky swallowed raw eggs, but not pink slime. You can man up with a manwich, but not with pink slime.

Pink slime shows the power of the media.

ABC ran a few articles on pink slime in March, and almost immediately school districts dropped it from their menus, restaurants ran away from it, and most supermarkets disclaimed it.

AFA Foods, a large pink slime producer, went in the red, and declared bankruptcy on April 2 and closed its California plant, but will produce lean finely textured beef elsewhere.

Lean finely textured beef (LFTB) is the official name for pink slime, but LFTB also sounds a foul food additive. Thus the nickname pink slime.

Pink slime is a mixture of the leftovers of a cow, including beef scraps, sinews, and connective tissue ground together, sterilized by ammonia, which almost sounds like the production of sausage and hot dogs.

Whoever coined the phrase “pink slime” performed a great disservice to the product, condemning it to food purgatory, along with trans fats, a similarly unappetizing food additive or filler.

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