As Juliet said, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would smell as sweet by any other name.”
So, for economy’s sake, call it almost anything but “pink slime.” Even “lean, finely textured beef” has a made-up quality to it that is off-putting.
This column, therefore, votes for “beef.”
That is what it is, after all. Beef Products Inc. and other meat processors take beef scraps, heat it, whirl it around to move the fat away from the protein, pack the protein into blocks, freeze it and wind up with a sterile product that can be added to ground beef and be sold at a lower price.
It is safe, nutritious and a great way to assure that much more of an animal is put to its highest use: feeding people.
But some ninny started calling it “pink slime” and other ninnies with not enough to do organized protests against it. So McDonald’s and other chains that can’t afford the repercussions of a national campaign, no matter how ill-informed, vowed not to buy ground beef with fat-free beef added and, perhaps, the result will be to feed the beef to hogs, cheat the American consumer of less expensive, quality ground beef and chalk up another victory for the noisy know-nothings.
Pity.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
