Consumers have been recoiling in shock and horror at reports revealing that the ground beef they’ve been buying contains up to 25% of a substance described by its producers as either BLBT (boneless lean beef trimmings) or LFTB (lean finely textured beef) but more colorfully called pink slime by a USDA microbiologist named Gerald Zirnstein back in 2002.
The issue is not that the stuff, whatever it’s called, is any more unsafe than steak, and it probably isn’t, as the LA Times points out. Rather, the problem is the mendacity, that the industry has been sneaking the stuff into our hamburger for ten years by describing it in deliberately misleading ways and, usually, without telling us that it’s even there.
The bottom line, though, is that it’s a marketing issue, so i predict that very soon we’ll start seeing advertising for “Biff – Another Pink Meat™”.