Wendy's: We've never used 'pink slime' in our burgers (2024)
The Wendy’s Co. wants everyone to know what’s in its burgers — or more precisely, what’s not in its burgers.
Given recent concerns, it’s launched a campaign to let people know its burgers never have contained “pink slime.”
The Dublin-based fast-food chain began running full-page ads in major daily newspapers across the United States today declaring that the company has “never used fillers, additives, preservatives, flavor boosters or ammonia treatments.”
“We’ve never used ‘pink slime,’ and we never will,” the ad says.
“Pink slime” is a low-cost filler that has been used for years to lower the overall fat content of ground beef. While consumers have grown alarmed by the filler, it isn’t dangerous, government officials and grocery chains say.
Lean, finely textured beef, as it’s called in the industry, is made from fatty bits of leftover meat that are heated, spun to remove the fat, shaped into blocks and treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Because the stuff is a beef product and meets federal standards for food safety, the government doesn’t require it to be included on the list of ingredients in ground beef.
Wendy’s decided to post the ads after receiving “many questions from customers and online communities,” spokesman Bob Bertini said in an email. “We felt it was important to set the record straight. We are very proud of our beef, and have never used lean finely textured beef, or ‘pink slime.’”
Earlier this month, “pink slime” became the topic of online chatter after McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell said that they would discontinue using the product in their food items.
A petition to eliminate meat containing pink slime from school lunches quickly gained steam this month, leading the Agriculture Department to announce last week that schools could choose to dump meat using the product starting in the fall.
Supermarket chains and other big retailers quickly began dumping the meat filler soon after that. Kroger, Giant Eagle, Stop & Shop, Meijer, Safeway, Supervalu and Food Lion all plan to do away with ground beef containing the filler.
Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club have announced that they will begin selling meat that doesn’t contain the filler, although they stopped short of saying they would stop selling beef with the filler completely.
we felt it was important to get the word out and set the record straight,” Bertini wrote in an email to Nation's Restaurant News. “We wanted to make it clear that we have never used lean finely textured beef, or 'pink slime. ' We've never used it because it did not meet our high quality standards.”
“We've never used 'pink slime,' and we never will,” the ad says. “Pink slime” is a low-cost filler that has been used for years to lower the overall fat content of ground beef. While consumers have grown alarmed by the filler, it isn't dangerous, government officials and grocery chains say.
The “pink slime” is made by gathering waste trimmings, simmering them at low heat so the fat separates easily from the muscle, and spinning the trimmings using a centrifuge to complete the separation. Next, the mixture is sent through pipes where it is sprayed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria.
In 2002, a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) microbiologist argued that the product contained connective tissue and that he did not consider it to be ground beef and that it was "not nutritionally equivalent" to ground beef. BPI claims no such connective tissue is used in their product.
According to The Daily, Whole Foods and Costco have said they do not sell meat with pink slime. The stores that sell store-ground meat with pink slime, according to the Daily, are Target, Safeway, Walmart, and Albertsons. In a response to CBS 5, Safeway said: "We are reviewing the issue now.
Other local stores that did sell meat with pink slime -- Aldi, Bottom Dollar, and Sam's Club -- now say they'll offer ground beef without pink slime. Kuhn's store manager Sam Guido thinks he knows why most grocery chains are now pulling the slime.
The meat industry defends that pink slime is in fact meat. The government says these ammonia-sprayed foods are safe to eat, but that doesn't make the chemical-treated meat any more appetizing to many consumers.
A U.S. government agency has regulated that a processed beef product made from slaughterhouse trimmings — known as "pink slime" — can be legally classified as ground beef. The product was the focus of an ABC News documentary in 2012, after which a company that makes the so-called "pink slime" — Beef Products Inc.
What is “pink slime?” “Pink slime” is a colloquial term for Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB). LFTB refers to smaller pieces of lean meat that are added to ground beef to produce a leaner product utilizing as much of meat from an animal as possible. The term “pink slime” was not developed by the food industry.
Given that meat has a fairly high percentage of water in the lean portions (muscle tissue), the amount of reddish watery discharge from the meat, called the “purge,” could be affected by the ratio of lean to fat, the coarseness of the grind, whether the meat was dry aged or not, the temperature and humidity at which it ...
To ensure the highest quality square hamburgers for our fans, we source 100% of our fresh, never frozen beef from Beef Quality Assurance certified farmers and ranchers.
It turns out that McDonald's nuggets have actually been pink slime-free since 2003 when they switched over to all white, non-mechanically separated chicken parts, but the Golden Arches' burgers still contained a beef variety of the "pink slime." And Burger King and Taco Bell were using the mechanically separated beef, ...
So how can you know if you're eating this additive? Simply look for the term "finely textured beef" or just "textured beef." That's the popular name for pink slime today, according to meat packer Cargill. The beef processing operation offers that juicy tidbit and more on the website GroundBeefAnswers.com.
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