How To Tell If You're Eating Pink Slime

Have you eaten hamburger meat from your grocer lately? If so, you probably ate some pink slime.

At grocer No. 1, the folks behind the butcher counter were able to show me one brand, a pricy "all-natural" ground beef that did not contain the meat filler. But for the many other and far less expensive varieties of ground beef? They had no way of knowing.

Grocer No. 2 presented the opposite problem. The workers there found one brand that definitely did have the pink stuff, but they couldn't say whether any others did or didn't.

And don't be fooled by the "all-natural" beef label at store No. 1. That term is unregulated, so it doesn't really mean anything. At another store, another brand of ground beef could be similarly labeled but still contain the meat filler.

But the term "organic" is regulated, and that provides a clue. If you can find it - and are willing to pay the price - ground beef labeled organic cannot contain lean finely textured beef.

Despite the odds, I had lucked out. Between the two grocers, I'd managed to identify two packages of 85 percent lean ground beef, one with pink slime and one without. Time to taste.

By label alone, it was clear we were talking different beef demographics. The pink slime-free product bragged that it was minimally processed and that the cows had been raised without antibiotics, growth hormones or animal byproducts in their food. Price - $5.99 per pound. The pink slime version? Just a minimalist "compare and save." Price - $3.09 per pound.

Click the link to read the rest. The "test" that the writer employed wasn't scientific, because it wasn't double-blind; the writer knew which burger had the pink slime in it.

It looks as if, to avoid buying ground meat with pink slime in it, you have to buy organic, and take the higher price hit that comes with it. Or grind your own, of course.