“I’ll have the Bacon Cheeseburger, hold the lettuce, tomato and ammonia, please.”

In a report that was difficult for some to read, the New York Times yesterday told the story of how a little known South Dakota company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service since 2001 have worked together to allow bacteria-killing ammonia to be used as a “processing agent” to make a mash that is allowed to be used in hamburger without labeling or public warnings.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJ79HWTRHM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Doesn’t that slab of meat look tasty?

Ingesting ammonia could potentially be a bad thing.  Millions around the nation who consume beef products from fast food outlets consume small amounts of ammonia daily and the New York Times recently reported that ammonia-treated beef is being served to schoolchildren around the country.

Beef Products, Inc., or BPI, has created a process of using ammonia to treat fatty slaughterhouse trimmings that previously could be used only for pet food or for making cooking oil so the trimmings can be sold as ground beef.

Through the BPI system of producing ground beef, bacteria-killing ammonia is used as a “processing agent” to make a mash that is allowed to be used in hamburger without public warnings.  Ammonia is rationed as part of beef processing and therefore doesn’t have to be listed as an ingredient on labeling.  But the amount of ammonia it takes to kill E. coli reportedly makes the beef taste and smell dreadful.

And this story made me want to go get a Big Mac Snack wrap right away;

Spokesmen for McDonald’s and Burger King told the Washington Post the fast food hamburger joints plan to keep using the “pink slime” sold by Dakota Dunes, SD-based Beef Products Inc.