So, I'd like to know who coined the term "pink slime." And what was it called before that?
It is actually called lean finely textured beef. The slime thing is just to create outrage. Here is an article about it.....I would link it but you have to have a membership to read it.
What's in a name?" the lovesick Juliet sighed from her balcony. "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
My guess is that the beleaguered executives at Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) would beg to differ with this famous damsel in distress.
Given their costly decision this week to suspend operations at three of four plants in the face of involuntary and hateful rebranding, some may be surly enough to call for the revocation of Shakespeare's poetic license.
What's in a name? If the choice is between "lean finely textured beef" and "pink slime," the wrong moniker could mean a major crisis in consumer confidence, disruptive market volatility and huge economic losses.
I suspect a few food police zealots might agree but insist on different consequences of a misleading title, implications like endangered standards of public health and unchecked corporate fraud.
Yes, Miss Capulet, names do matter. If only you and Romeo could stop holding hands long enough to assess the March madness of lean finely textured beef versus pink slime, that inescapable fact of life would become as obvious as troublesome in-laws.
I've been around the block enough times to know the value of both positive and negative name-calling. Unfortunately, it's a time-honored sport.
Long before the science of debate or stupid rules of logic, mankind proved master of the hurled invective, the self-serving label long on emotional impact and short on messy reasoning.
All the great political strategists of our day like David Plouffe and Karl Rove are keenly aware of what's at stake in the name game. That's why "revenue enhancers" often take the place of "taxes," "pro choice" substitutes for "abortion rights," "weapons of mass destruction" stands for "unilateral intervention," and Obamacare replaces "affordable health reform."
There's no use in being coy about how we're wired for self-serving characterization, how we tend to depict situations in ways that will serve larger agendas and nurture approved perceptions.
I certainly don't see anything innocent about the way BPI refers to its long-used and previously well-accepted product as "lean finely texture beef." As euphemisms go, surely this is a fine specimen. Its no-nonsense calling card of LFTB is even better.
Calling the stuff "residual scraps of fatty trim processed and chemically treated with ammonia" may be closer to the truth, but it doesn't do much in moving it out the front door. While truth in advertising is important, honesty without a touch of make-up can preclude the very need of advertising.
Yet if LFTB is somewhat gilded by business hype, I think it is grounded far more in reality than so-called "pink slime." Like the worst student in the class who gets a few points for placing the correct date on his paper, the ground beef filler is correctly described as pink. Beyond that token, such name-calling is sophomoric, sensational and scientifically unfounded.
While those first two judgments are obvious, let me say a few words about how the pink slime activists have either ignored or misused the science surrounding the safety of this product in use since the early 1980s. To my knowledge, there has never been a specific study impugning LFTB. Furthermore, USDA continues to endorse the absolute safety of the product.
I've received some thoughtful blogs from readers who seriously question the long-term ramifications of ammonia-treated meat. There are always unresolved questions in scientific inquiry, conclusions are always provisional, and real consensus is essentially a work in progress.
Having said that, I think the practical world demands that we respect USDA as the active sheriff in charge of monitoring the best science supporting food safety.
Does that mean government scientists are always right? Does that mean that we should turn a deaf ear to sound research that suggests contrary ideas? Of course not.
But it does mean that producers, processors and consumers all need a standard bearer to uphold, defend and apply the best food safety science available. USDA may be far from perfect, and the department occasionally sways in the political wind. Yet it's the best arbitrator we've got.
I only wish Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack would be more forceful in denouncing the name of "pink slime." His decision to give school districts the option of purchasing government ground beef with or without LFTB struck me as transparently political. While giving lip service to the safety of the additive, this unnecessary shift in policy was almost like whispering off-camera "we don't like the stuff either."
Did Washington ambivalence play a role in triggering the stampede of major retailers (i.e., Kroger, Safeway, Supervalu Stores, Stop & Shop, Food Lion, and others) away from LFTB?
Although most of the crazy blame goes to the media circus and a social network feeding frenzy, USDA could have been much stronger in calling the best-known rose of meat safety by its real name.
