Reacting to a media-driven fuss thousands of schools across the country stopped serving lean finely textured beef in cafeterias last year. The ammonia-treated beef, which became known as "pink slime," is making a return to schools in seven states this year, according to Politico.
Lean finely textured beef, or LFTB as it is known in the industry, consists of beef by-products that are treated in a centrifuge with ammonia to kill dangerous bacteria. The LFTB is then mixed in with ground beef as a way decrease the amount of waste while increasing the yield per cow, according to the New York Daily News.
Schools in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas are once again ordering the controversial product from Beef Products Inc. Schools in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota never stopped serving the beef, according to the Huffington Post.
"With the successful use of LFTB by [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," Craig Letch, BPI's director of food safety and quality assurance, told Politico. "This will ultimately enable them to provide more nutritious lean beef to their children."
About 2 million pounds of LFTB has been ordered by the schools for the upcoming school year, a large decrease from the 7 million pounds that were consumed during the 2011-2012 school year before its use became controversial, according to the Huffington Post.
Funding for education, in particular for school lunch programs, is always difficult to obtain and the use of LFTB allows budget conscious schools to save three percent when compared to regular ground beef. While that may not seem like much when it is stretched out to cover millions of school children any savings tend to add up, according to Politico.
Consumers tend to be grossed out by the idea behind "pink slime," there is a general belief that meat shouldn't require a scientific process involving a centrifuge and ammonia prior to eating, but the USDA confirms that LFTB is 100 percent safe to consume, reports Politico.
Bettina Siegel, a food blogger who helped create the controversy surrounding LFTB, told the New York Daily News that since schoolchildren are dependent on school lunch they have no power to decide what they eat so it's not shocking that schools would choose the cheapest option.
"I felt disappointed by not surprised," Siegel said about the schools once again serving LFTB. "Schools initially purchased ground beef with LFTB to cut costs - reportedly, a few pennies per pound. So once the media spotlight on LFTB was removed, I suppose it was predictable that some districts would choose to resume serving it to their students."
While the USDA contends that the beef is safe for consumption it does require that any beef containing more than 15 percent LFTB be labeled. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, introduced a bill to the House that would require any beef containing the product to be labeled so that people know exactly what they are eating, Politico reports.
"As a parent, I wouldn't want pink slime in my kid's school lunches, but ultimately that decision is up to parents and school systems," Pingree said. "But for anyone to make an informed decision they need accurate information, so I'm glad the USDA has agreed to make sure school systems know when they are ordering meat that has this product in it."
While insiders in the beef industry and the USDA say that LFTB is safe a Pulitzer Prize winning article in the New York Times from 2009 reported that government inspectors found E. coli or salmonella in beef containing LFTB more than 50 times since 2005. Luckily the contamination was discovered prior to the meat being served in a school cafeteria.
