Pink Slime in the Cafeteria–What are They Serving Kids?

It’s not a secret that I’m disgusted by what they pass off as “food” to our young children. Every Thursday, I volunteer the entire day in my son’s Kindergarten class and every Thursday I eat lunch with the students and my son. Most of the time, I pack a lunch for myself and my son, but we still eat with them on the outside deck. I’m able to witness first hand what is served and it makes me shudder. This Thursday it was chicken nugget strips, tater tots, frozen strawberries in sugar, raisins (thank God), and chocolate chip cookies. Here’s the irony. The chocolate milk that was served had MORE SUGAR than the actual chocolate chip cookies. None of the kids ate their raisins (actual food), and frozen strawberry & sugar concoction had no nutritional information where I could gauge what it was.

Now let’s get to the pink slime….

My friend Lisa Johnson wrote a piece for the True Food Movement about the “pink slime” that will be served up to our children. I know, you are thinking…what? Yeah, it’s this goopey goo that is made of beef or chicken parts and cartilage that has been treated with ammonia. Check out this picture of what it looks like here…

Looks tasty, huh? No, that’s not strawberry soft serve ice cream. It’s part of the base that COULD be going into your child’s hamburger or chicken nuggets this year when they eat in the school cafeteria. And there is no way for you to know for sure because the labeling requirements are so lax. Good luck finding out if your local cafeteria serves it, but be warned because the USDA is purchasing 7 million pounds of this stuff to put in school lunches this year. This is not what I would consider REAL food. But let’s face it, do our kids actually get any real food? No. Lisa has also started a petition and I recommend you all sign the petition asking Washington to stop purchasing this crap and feeding to our children.

According to Snopes, “pink slime” or Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) is still used in chicken nuggets and hot dogs and dosed with ammonia. Chicken and pork MSM is considered safe and used by the FDA, BUT meat products are different. They stopped the legal use of meat based MSM in 2005 because of fears of “mad cow” disease. Oh, but manufacturers found a way around that. Instead of MSM they use “lean been trimmings” where beef is extracted and sent through small tubes and exposed to ammonia gas to give it that pink color. So yeah, it’s still “pink slime.” This substance is mixed with other “beef products” and will be about 25% of your child’s hamburger according to Snopes.

The rest of this post can be found at MomsLA.