Pink slime is back.
Backed by a massive media storm led by British celebrity chef and food activist Jamie Oliver and by critical investigative reporting from ABC News, the chemically-produced food additive known as “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB) was largely removed from school lunchrooms and fast food establishments across the nation. However, government analysis shows the product is experiencing a resurgence, with seven states placing orders with the United States Department of Agriculture for approximately 2 million pounds of “pink slime”-containing beef for their 2013-2014 school year’s lunch programs.
Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia have all moved to welcome back the product, in an attempt to lower the cost of their school lunch programs. Of the food used in the National School Lunch Program, 20 percent comes directly from the USDA, and since March 2012, the agency has provided both LFTB-free beef and LFTB-enriched beef. The USDA holds firm that LFTB is safe.
“Pink slime”
“I believe it is important to distinguish people’s concerns about how their food is made from their concerns about food safety,” wrote Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, under secretary for food safety, on the USDA’s blog in March 2012. “The process used to produce LFTB is safe and has been used for a very long time. And adding LFTB to ground beef does not make that ground beef any less safe to consume.”
LFTB — so-called “pink slime” — is a way to capitalize on the fatty scraps that remains after a cattle carcass is butchered and processed. These fatty scraps have too high a fat-to-lean ratio to be edible as is, and usually has too much connective or supportive tissue to be used in ground beef formulations. These scraps are collected, heated until the fat liquefies, centrifuged to separate it from the rendered fat and now-disconnected inedible fibers, treated with either ammonium hydroxide or citric acid to make the product microbially-inert and grounded before being added to ground beef. Up to 15 percent of ground beef could be LFTB without having to be labelled accordingly, although the USDA encourages voluntary labeling.
“USDA has repeatedly affirmed that lean finely textured beef is safe, wholesome, and nutritious 100% lean beef,” adds Craig Letch, director of food safety and quality assurance for Beef Products Inc., the largest manufacturer of the product. “With the successful use of LFTB by [the USDA’s National School Lunch Program] over the last 15 years, we are confident that these states and school districts will enjoy both quality and cost improvements. This will ultimately enable them to provide more nutritious lean beef to their children.”
Eric Mittenthal, vice president of public affairs for the American Meat Industry, agreed with this in conversation with MintPress News. “LFTB is a lean protein no different than other lean beef products and as such offers a great deal of nutrition benefits to students. From a long term health perspective its impact is that it would provide lean protein for growing bodies, which is consistent with nutrition recommendations.”
Most people, however, when asked about “pink slime” do not doubt the safety of the product. “Mostly it’s just that parents thought it was gross,” said Margo Wootan, head of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The price of eating healthy
This begs a very difficult question. With 94 percent of the nation’s schools participating in the National School Lunch Program — which compensates schools and school districts for providing healthy low-cost or free lunch and breakfast options for low-income students — the vast majority of the nation’s school-aged children are affected by the Michelle Obama-promoted 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which dictates that participating schools must present lunch options that are heavy in lean meat, fresh produce and whole grains.
What this means in practical terms is something poor families realize on a regular basis: healthy foods are more expensive than processed foods. To illustrate this, consider a typical school lunch before and after the passage of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. A 2005-circa lunch may consist of a breaded chicken patty on a bun, french fries, fruit cocktail in heavy syrup and whole white milk. Circa 2012, that meal cannot be served.
First, the sandwich constitute a double serving of bread, which is against USDA rules, as of 2012. The breaded chicken patty would have to be replaced with a lean piece of chicken, the fruit cocktail would have to be replaced with fresh fruit or a cocktail in water or light syrup and the french fries would have to be scratched for a healthier side dish — possibly a salad. The whole milk would be replaced with 2 percent milk.
The reason processed foods are cheaper than whole foods is that lesser qualities of food can be “filled” with additives and the taste can be masked with sugar, salt and fat to create something that is palatable but typically of less quality nutritionally from its non-processed counterpart. This “sticker shock” of providing healthy foods has caused 1 percent of the 2013-2014 participating schools to drop out, with another 3 percent considering abandoning the program.
For the schools that dropped out, their rationale is the struggle millions of parents face on a nightly basis. The USDA reimburses schools roughly $2.93 per lunch served, with an additional $.06 given per every Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act-compliant meal served. For many smaller schools that serves only a small number of NSLP-meals a day, the hassle and extreme cost of providing predominantly fresh meals is simply not worth the effort.
“My understanding, from a few of the districts that have dropped off, is that their free and reduced percentage could be as low as 5 percent of the students, which means that all they are getting for the reimbursable meal is 30 cents,” said Julia Bauscher, the president-elect of the School Nutrition Association and school-nutrition director at Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Ky. “If they had previously not offered a lot of whole grains or fruits and vegetables, or their students didn’t choose them, there was a significant increase in cost of providing the meals.”
Another consideration in the enforcement of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is the implied requirement that lunch personnel must have some level of nutrition training. Many small schools use volunteers in their lunchrooms, making compliance difficult. “In Kansas we have a lot of private schools and oftentimes the food-service director may be a parent, and they may not have had a lot of background in food service, so they need additional help and training. Our public schools have people who have more experience,” said Cheryl Johnson, director of child nutrition and wellness for the Kansas State Department of Education.
Consequences and choices
All of this creates a situation where the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable kids may be denied access to healthy, quality food — quite possibly their main source of nutrition for the day — for economic and convenience reasons. The USDA has introduced a new set of rules that relax many of its previous determinations, including the permitting of homemade treats in the classroom and allowing multiple servings of starch in a single meal.
All the same, as schools control the procurement of 80 percent of the foods served in the National School Lunch Program and as the incentive for compliance with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is so low, it begs the uncomfortable question of how, exactly, the schools are adjusting to the new requirements.
“Eating healthier is a good thing, but it is more expensive. And the truth is most students don’t want to eat healthier, so there has been and will be a transition period because what is being served at school in many cases doesn’t look like what they eat at home,” said Michael Smith, the superintendent at Tuscola Community Unit School District No. 301 in Tuscola, Ill. “I’m a proponent of the new standards health-wise, but it is another example of how all of these issues are dumped on schools. I wish they would also be addressed in other places where students eat, like fast-food [restaurants] and gas stations.”