Pink Slime!!

You have to seriously be thankful for investigative reporters. If it wasn't for their exposes, we would be left in the dark about a lot of serious topics that affect our lives. In addition to Watergate, Iran Contra and steroids in baseball, we now have the "Pink Slime" scandal. It turns out that 70% of all ground meat has a secret filler amongst the beef. This filler was named pink slime in 2002 by US Food and safety inspector Gerald Zirnstein. Pink slime is made from low grade beef trimmings that come from connective, spinal, intestinal and rectal tissue of a slaughtered cow. To make matters worse (did you think it could get worse?), the pink slime is heated with very high heat, then spun in a centrifuge to remove the liquid. Once the liquid is removed, the pink slime is treated and sprayed with ammonia to kill food borne germs and bacteria that lead to illness. The ammonia treatment makes the pink slime a legally edible food product. Once the slime has been treated with the ammonia, it is shaped into pink bricks and sent to meat packing plants, supermarkets butcher shops and other places that process the meat into hamburgers or ground meat. The crazy thing is that the pink slime manufacturer, a company called Beef Products Inc., officially calls the slime product, "Lean Finely Textured Beef." This stuff has been sold as a ground beef additive for years and 900,000 pounds are made on a daily basis. An investigative report by ABC News in early March has led to consumer outrage and as recently as March 12th, numerous supermarkets have discontinued using this product. Costco, Safeway, Publix and Whole Foods Market will not be purchasing pink slime for their ground meat....anymore. This stuff is so bad, even McDonalds has opted out of using it in their hamburgers. McDonalds!! It's gotta be bad if McDonalds is shying away. Sadly, the meat by-product is still used in many other supermarkets and beef manufacturers that process frozen burgers. Even in public school systems. The USDA has recently given public schools a choice between using pink slime meat or unadulterated ground meat. Check with your school system to find out which meat your kids are eating. This issue belabors my usual point of how important it is to know what you are eating each day and how reading labels should be part of the normal shopping regimen. The days of "reach, grab, throw it in the cart" are over. Thankfully we have investigative reporters to break important news to us. The shame of it all is that if companies were more concerned about the quality of food they process and less about profit, the world would be a healthier, happier place.

Thought for the Week: If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. ~Paul McCartney

Chiropractic Thought for the Week: Dr. Reggie Gold, one of the greatest chiropractic philosophers that ever lived, recently passed. His lectures, videos, and presentations demonstrate that he was a master of communication, he developed techniques to explain chiropractic to lay people with ease and beauty. A beacon of information to the world about the benefits of chiropractic, he worked diligently at debunking the misconceptions about chiropractors. His “Chemistry of Life” lecture helped thousands of chiropractors articulate that we are so much more than back doctors. He explains, “Chiropractic deals with all the things that your body has to do, how you perform, how you drive, how you make a salad, how fast you can read and how well you can remember things.” Reggie was a powerhouse. His personal mission was to spread the chiropractic health care message to the world. He once said, "If you are not out to change the world, everything else is just 'Mickey Mouse'."