Let's talk about pink slime

The news that the USDA is planning to purchase seven million pounds of ground connective tissue treated with ammonium hydroxide--dubbed "pink slime" by microbiologists--for school lunches went viral yesterday. This is material that has been rejected by fast food outlets, but not by the federal government for feeding to children.

The particularly alarming part from the local school perspective is there is no requirement that this be labeled as anything other than "hamburger" per The Daily:

In 2005, the USDA limited the amount of ammonia-treated Lean Beef Trimmings in a serving of ground beef to 15 percent, but lax labeling requirements mean that it is virtually impossible as a consumer — and for parents of children at a schools where “pink slime” is a part of lunch — to know whether a given package of ground beef or hamburger patty contains it.

“The USDA-AMS [Agricultural Marketing Service] does allow for the inclusion of BPI Boneless Lean Beef in the ground beef they procure for all their federal food programs and, according to federal labeling requirements, it is not a raw material that is uniquely labeled,” Amy Bell, spokeswoman for the California Department of Education Food Distribution Program, told The Daily in an email. “Accordingly, there is no way to tell from simply looking at a package of finished product if BPI Boneless Lean Beef is in the product mix.”

Last year, the USDA said that 6.5 percent of the beef it purchased for the national school lunch program came from BPI.

As you'd hope, this news sent school nutrition directors (including Worcester's) to the state to ask just what it was that they were planning on sending us labeled "hamburger." The state now has a call into USDA to ask the same.
I've sent a letter to Congressman McGovern, who sits on the Agriculture Committee, asking that this be pulled from the school lunch program. I'd urge you to do likewise (and if you live somewhere other than Worcester, ask your school nutrition director to find out what's going on with the hamburger).

UPDATE for those of you from Worcester: Worcester does not only get hamburger from USDA; we also purchase it separately from a meat producer in Connecticut where it is ground fresh.