https://www.globallight.net has 2 articles about what's being put in hamburgers,
hotdogs, etc and being fed to school children. Also places like mcDonalds, Burger
King, etc. I think it's under the FYI section!
You might want to read this AFTER you've eaten rather than before!
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May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!
I could not find the articles at their site. Maybe that's a good omen. I would have to say, "Oh dear, my once a week comfort food."
I agree about hot dogs. The sodium nitrite. I only found one brand that does not have that. My local grocer stocks it after my request. Since I don't have any in the house now, I can't remember that brand.
But I love burgers. I love Burger King burgers; because they are open flame grilled or char broiled.
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- Jim
Life is just one damned thing after another - Elbert Hubbard
I could not find the articles at their site. Maybe that's a good omen. I would have to say, "Oh dear, my once a week comfort food."
I agree about hot dogs. The sodium nitrite. I only found one brand that does not have that. My local grocer stocks it after my request. Since I don't have any in the house now, I can't remember that brand.
But I love burgers. I love Burger King burgers; because they are open flame grilled or char broiled.
I couldn't find the articles either. We rarely eat hot dogs, but when we do, we make them at home and use a brand like Coleman, more natural with no added nitrates. I won't eat fast food burgers anymore, but you can grill up a pretty tasty and healthy one at home, with some nice ground sirloin, or other lowfat ground beef.
__________________ "We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~
Thanks for the Coleman hint k2c. I'll look for that. I remembered the brand at my grocer. Small store. Not very much variety. John Morrel Bistro Natural. Uncured beef. I don't care for the taste so much; but better than the rest.
I like to make my own Manwich type sauce to put on the dogs - https://www.thriftyfun.com/tf19596741.tip.html. Sometimes I like sauerkraut. Sometimes I just like to boil the ground beef, drain, then mix with chopped onion and garlic.
I think I'll go to the grocery this afternoon. I'm making myself hungry.
https://www.globallight.net has 2 articles about what's being put in hamburgers,
hotdogs, etc and being fed to school children. Also places like mcDonalds, Burger
King, etc. I think it's under the FYI section!
You might want to read this AFTER you've eaten rather than before!
I couldn't find the articles in your link EarlyBird, but came across this one, is it the same?
Hamburger, Ground Beef, Ammonia
Sometimes a story breaks that�s so outrageous it�s hard to know where to begin telling it. In this case, the story involves beef treated with ammonia.
Apparently, a company called Beef Products, Inc., has been distributing the stuff for eight years. It shows up widely in fast-food hamburgers, in school lunches, and in supermarket ground beef. Nobody had been "beefing" about the meat until the New York Times broke a story last week claiming that government and industry records revealed dozens of incidents of E. coli and salmonella contamination.
But before even going to the contamination issue, which the press went all agog about, what about the presence of ammonia in beef? How did the USDA come to approve treating food with a substance that�s corrosive to the skin, eyes, and lungs � that literally can eat a hole through the gut?
It seems that back in 2000 or so, the executives at Beef Products Inc. felt frustrated that they couldn�t use the fatty waste in the beef for anything except pet food and cooking oil, since fat is so vulnerable to bacterial contamination and wouldn�t pass inspection. But then, someone at the company had a money-making brainstorm � if the fatty matter could be treated with large-amounts of ammonia, perhaps the contaminants would die and then the waste could be ground into a paste, added to hamburg, and sold for a far higher price. And sure enough, tests showed that the ammonia did seem to kill off E. coli and salmonella, and the company started marketing its ammonia-treated products far and wide.
The FDA and USDA approved, and in fact, granted an exemption to Beef Products, Inc. so that the ammonia-infused ground beef coming out of that company didn�t have to go through regular inspections. Now, ammonia-treated beef ends up in 70 percent of all hamburger sold in the US, including meat sold at Burger King, McDonalds, through the school lunch program, and in numerous supermarket chains.
And so we come to the first two questions evoked by the scenario: what�s the impact of eating ammonia (concerns about eating beef aside), and how can the USDA justify suspending inspections of any meat product? As for the ammonia issue, the company says in its literature, "It is naturally present in all proteins. Ammonia is essential for life�" But according to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry,
* Ammonia is highly irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract. Swelling and narrowing of the throat and bronchi, coughing, and an accumulation of fluid in the lungs can occur.
* Ammonia causes rapid onset of a burning sensation in the eyes, nose, and throat, accompanied by lacrimation, rhinorrhea, and coughing. Upper airway swelling and pulmonary edema may lead to airway obstruction.
* Prolonged skin contact (more than a few minutes) can cause pain and corrosive injury.
Apparently, no independent tests were run to assess safety risk before the product got the stamp of approval. Instead, the USDA relied on assurances from Beef Products, Inc., that they had run the stuff through testing and found it to be perfectly safe.
A former USDA microbiologist, Carl S. Custer, called the processed beef "pink slime" and said, "I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling." Then again, the FDA also allows the meat industry to dose its products with carbon monoxide to keep them looking nice and pink � even if a bit slimy � for an extra 20 days of shelf life. When you think about it, what�s a little ammonia added to the mix?
According to the company, the process of converting fatty waste to edible beef, "increases the naturally occurring levels of ammonium hydroxide a slight amount in order to assist in eliminating any harmful bacteria that could potentially be present in meats." However, the "slight amount" apparently was enough to lend the beef hitting the shelves a strong smell of ammonia � strong enough that numerous customers complained about the stink. Those customers were unaware that ammonia had been used in processing, and yet, the smell came through strong enough to indicate unhealthy levels of alkalinity.
In any event, the company decided to lower the ammonia content in order to allay customer concerns. And that brings us to the current situation, because although lowering the ammonia levels eliminated the stinky beef syndrome, it simultaneously failed to kill all the pathogens. School lunch officials kept testing the meat although the USDA didn�t require it, and found that in the years 2005 to 2009, Beef Products tested positive for salmonella 36 times per 1,000 tests, compared to only nine positive tests per 1,000 for other suppliers, including two contaminated 27,000 pound batches found this past August. Three instances of E. coli contamination also were found. The contaminated batches were disposed of before being served
The conversion of fatty waste into marketable meat has led to fat profits estimated at about $440 million annually for Beef Products Inc. And, the payoff extends to customers like the School Lunch Program, which says, "[The School Lunch program will continue to use BPI beef] despite some misgivings�because its price is substantially lower than ordinary meat trimmings, saving about $1 million a year."
Likewise, other consumers of BPI products seem unmoved by the New York Times report: McDonald�s, Burger King, and Cargill all said they�ll continue to use the meat, pointing to the fact that no cases of illness have been directly tied to BPI products so far. Of course, had the School Lunch Program been a bit less vigilant in its testing, lots of kids would have been sickened and the situation would look quite different.
But Americans love their beef and it seems that short of an outbreak of disease, they�ll keep buying it. Abner Womack, a senior economist at the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri points out that "U.S. beef demand for beef has remained relatively constant even amid massive recalls, disease outbreaks and scares over mad cow disease. We tend to trust, more than any country in the world, the (government) food inspections." He failed to mention the fact that BPI products aren�t subject to those inspections.
There�s an old saying that goes, "There are two things you never want to watch: the making of sausage and the making of legislation." Maybe we should now add a third � ground beef.
Yes, that's the article I was talking about, Kind2C. Thanks for posting it.
I think on the GLN.net site, when I went back, I had to type in Newsletter
in right upper corner. Sorry for the confusion, Folks.
Mercola.com has an article today about feces found at fast food places.
Another huge YUCK!
Yes, that's the article I was talking about, Kind2C. Thanks for posting it.
I think on the GLN.net site, when I went back, I had to type in Newsletter
in right upper corner. Sorry for the confusion, Folks.
Mercola.com has an article today about feces found at fast food places.
Another huge YUCK!
You're welcome EarlyBird! In restaurants, if there's mints available when you leave, stay away from any that are not wrapped for sure! And I've learned on the Dr.Oz show to avoid community dips at parties, those folks who "double dip" leave all kinds of bacteria behind!
Ammonia. Highly alkaline. pH of 11.6. I wonder why they chose to use that. It is a waste product; also a waste produced by dying bacteria. Part of the natural nitrogen cycle. It would only serve as an osmotic shock agent. After that, bacteria would still thrive; as they do in an alkaline environment. That's why there would still be e.coli and salmonella. It is only a myth that bacteria, friendly or unfriendly, can't survive in an alkaline environment. It is the osmotic shock that kills them. https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/osmotic%20shock and that is only briefly.
The Herxheimer reaction (also known as Jarisch-Herxheimer or Herx) occurs when large quantities of toxins are released into the body as bacteria (typically Spirochetal bacteria) die, due to antibiotic treatment or rapid detoxification.
You know the process. The doctor prescribes an antibiotic; then tells you, or should tell you, that you will most likely get a little worse before getting better. The same happens when you start a new detox program.
Again, the nitrogen cycle. Ammonia is produced in the intestines as a by-product of bacterial fermentation of protein and other nitrogen-containing substances. It is also produced when the bacteria die. If they die in large numbers, you get this die-off effect - or Herx.
Even low levels of ammonia can have adverse effects to the body, such as increased turnover and destruction of the epithelial cells that line the colon. The typical Western diet can cause elevated levels of ammonia, which has been associated with increased viral infections, growth of colon cancer cells, cell toxicity, and altered nucleic acid synthesis.
Stomach acid secretion also decreases with age, and low levels of hydrochloric acid can lead to an imbalance of microflora in the digestive tract. Pathogenic microbes can produce toxic amines, carcinogenic substances, and other health-damaging chemicals. In fact, studies with acid-blocking therapies such as cimetidine have shown that low gastric acid secretion significantly increases nitrite and N-nitrosamine concentrations related to the occurrence of nitrate-reducing bacteria.
The body has numerous pH balancing mechanisms. No matter how you try to defeat it by using alkaline building or acid building substances, it will recover quickly. However if you should continue for a long duration, you can weaken those processes and cause great health problems.
I wonder if ammonia is used in France for ground beef. I once had a McDonald's hamburger in Paris. It was mostly pink. The French apparently believe that less food processing is healthy. They even have a raw ground beef dish.
I don't think I want to eat raw ground beef in any country! Medium
Rare steak yes, ground beef no; like sushi - raw fish? - not for me!
Where US school lunch programs, etc. are concerned, it seems to be the
"almighty dollar" is still the bottom line.
Better to fix a kids lunch of peanut butter/jelly to take from home than
eating what the schools serve American children. Or become Jewish and
eat only Kosher meats.
I don't think I want to eat raw ground beef in any country! Medium
Rare steak yes, ground beef no; like sushi - raw fish? - not for me!
Where US school lunch programs, etc. are concerned, it seems to be the
"almighty dollar" is still the bottom line.
Better to fix a kids lunch of peanut butter/jelly to take from home than
eating what the schools serve American children. Or become Jewish and
eat only Kosher meats.
When I have a package of fresh red ground beef, I almost always take a small piece or two, sprinkle with sea salt and eat it raw.
As far as hot dogs, though we don't eat them very often at all, before the more natural Coleman brand was around, we ate the Hebrew National franks, we won't eat any frankfurters with pork in them, they have to be all beef.
I'm like you with raw fish, never even tried it, and I doubt I ever will.
I could find no hot dogs that were manufactured without sodium nitrite. Now Oscar Meyer is selling one, called Angus. It specifically states that it is free of sodium nitrite. At least someone cares. I hope it is supported well. Delicious and free of that nitrite. I wish more vendors would pay attention to such.
The Coleman natural beef hot dogs have no nitrates or nitrites, no MSG and no fillers. The beef is raised with no antibiotics or hormones, and always vegeterian fed. Gluten and dairy free.
The only other natural beef dog I remember buying was Vienna brand, which was also nitrate/nitrite free. Bought those at Costco too.
Just surprised me to see the Coleman sold in a regular supermarket like Kroger (King Soopers).
Sushi (if you go to the right place) is phenomenol. Once in the 90s in Boulder CO I had Filet Mignon sushi. As for no nitrites, look for cellery juice. It has natural nitrates and they add an enzyme that reduces the nitrtates to nitrites, If you want to try sushi, try the salmon as the first one, very mild.
How could there be a Filet Mignon Sushi? I though Sushi was always seafood?
Sorry, I still don't plan on trying Sushi!!!!!!!!!!!
Our Condo group had a cookout Memorial Day - Sunday........I didn't go as they were serving only hotdogs & sausages. Ground beef has gotten too expensive they say.
I guess I could have gone for the desserts & maybe a veggie dish or salad if someone had brought them.
But, since my farmer's market has restarted, I can get great ground chuck & make my own hamburgers
from beef that I know for sure has been raised/fed right w/no hormones, etc.
YUCK! Ground Beef Products fed to kids!
Same article
YUCK article
Raw Ground Beef?
Ground beef has gotten too expensive they say. 
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