Honestly, I don’t know how I manage to miss important news. If you had any idea of the amount of time I spend every evening surfing the internet for information (while watching the local and national news) you’d be amazed that I missed this one too! Ok, here’s my disclaimer: If you really, really enjoy eating your hamburgers – don’t read the rest of this article. It really is gross. But for those of you who actually care about your health and aren’t afraid of making lifestyle changes to get fit – then read on! This is especially those of you who made fun of me for turning into a deer eating redneck! After this, you will likely remove the name “Bambi” from your vocabulary and replace it with “yummy.”
A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article regarding a practice that was put in place about 8 years ago to address the pesky problem of E. coli. You can read the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=1 However, if you don’t have time – here’s a recap:
There is a man in South Dakota, Eldon R. Roth, who by his own admission is a mechanic. I love mechanics….really, I do. My son was a professional mechanic before he changed careers and to this day I call upon him for all sorts of routine issues with my car, tractor, lawn mowers, etc. But as deep as my appreciation for mechanics run, I don’t think I want them solving any medical or nutritional problems. But Mr. Roth did. He started thinking one day about E. coli and figured, “You know what? We need to find something that kills that germ! Hey, I know, ammonia – heck that stuff will kill just about anything!”
Ok, I have to tell you a sad story here….when I was a little girl of about 10 years, I had a kitty cat. I can’t recall what I named the kitten, but I remember how she looked. She was black and white. Well, my father apparently didn’t like kittens. For some reason, this kitty took a while to learn to use the litter box and had some “accidents.” As an adult, I now wonder if the cat was just smart enough to know dad didn’t like cats and was simply punishing him. But anyway, it made my dad so mad that one day when I was cleaning up the “accident,” he made me pour some ammonia on the kitten. I was cleaning with ammonia because not only does it kill germs, it really cleans up poo pretty good. As I was afraid of him, I complied and poured a bit on the kitten. The ammonia killed the animal within just a few days. It seemed to have eaten right through her fur and skin. It was a terrible trauma for me. Ok, back to my story -
Mr. Roth, the mechanic, decides that if he can figure out a way to make filler for beef, with a bit of ammonia in it, it will not only take care of E. coli and salmonella, it will also make the beef companies a ton of money! So he took left over fat from all sorts of animals and mixed it with a bit of ammonia, then froze the slimy concoction and shipped it to beef processors to add to their meat. Not only does the ammonia kill E. coli and salmonella, and save the processors .03 cents per pound, it also increases shelf life. Wow. Isn’t this great? And the funny thing is, the FDA approved it. Ok. This is where it gets a little stupid. You know how the government agencies have a problem with communicating with one another? Similar to how the CIA and FBI failed to communicate red flags concerning a military psychologist who later went all “jihad” on a base in Texas. Also similar to how agencies failed to communicate concerns about a Nigeria man who ended up attempting to blow up a plane during the holidays last month. I could go on and on about the lack of communication issues, but when sections of the same department do not communicate – I think it’s pretty funny (aka sad). The FDA has a sub-department that handles school lunches. They want to make sure that what our kids are eating really is safe…and eventually they discovered that the meat treated with pink slime wasn’t so safe after all. The FDA wasn’t aware of this because they were so convinced that the added ammonia would kill E. coli that they decided it would be a waste of time to test the meat – so they didn’t. However, the department that monitors school lunch food had other information they didn’t feel the need to share with the guys in the next office.
The cooks at a Georgia prison became concerned when they began noticing a strong ammonia odor coming from the meat when they were cooking hamburgers for the inmates – so they alerted the FDA about a possible contamination! I wish I could have seen the looks on the cook’s faces when the FDA instructed them to go ahead and feed the inmates your ammonia burgers – it’s been approved!
Now before you think you are immune to exposure of ammonia burgers, you have to know that the company who produces the pink ammonia slime stated that 70% of all hamburgers in the United States are treated! Yuk. That includes all fast food restaurants and ground beef you purchase at the grocery store.
Where is the logic behind any of this, but most importantly, after watching a parade of commercials about FDA approved drugs with all sorts of horrible side affects, WHY am I surprised that they think eating ammonia is ok? Have you ever read the warnings on the bottles of ammonia? Have you ever used it in a non-ventilated room and had your eyes burn? Remember what it did to my kitten? Yikes! Is it scary or is it yummy?
By the way, the process of using left over animal body parts is nothing new. Tomorrow, I will let you in on a little secret about what is floating around in your lipstick, make-up and body lotion!
So what can you and I do about this insanity? First, stop eating it. You would think that would be a common sense response, but I know how it is. You want that hamburger, you are hungry, and McDonalds is right around the corner! But stop for just a minute and think. Why do you think the occurrence of cancer is getting higher and higher? We must get serious about the link between what we expose ourselves to and our health!
The second thing you can do is to speak up! Ask your grocer if they have any meat that is not tainted with the filler. If they don’t, walk away. The possibility of them losing your dollars is a powerful incentive to change policy! If we all stop trading our dollars for “cancer causing crap” – then the giants who feed it to us will have to listen!
The third thing – make people aware of this. I did not know. The media doesn’t seem to think this is important enough to talk about. Everyone trusts the almighty FDA. Think about that. No agency should ever be so powerful that they become above reproach and beyond doubt. Educate yourself and those around you. Knowledge is power!
The last thing you can do – speak up to those in charge. Make demands on the politicians who are supposed to be representing you! The FDA is corrupt – let’s find some people who care enough to clean it up! The next time you see a commercial on television soliciting people who have been harmed by approved drugs and they want you to sue the drug company – remember that the FDA should be held accountable as well. The FDA and the drug companies are in bed together and there’s a lot of money being passed between them. Prostitution is illegal – so let’s hold the FDA accountable for their crime! 
