Worse than Pink Slime

“Pink slime” isn’t the only industrialized meat treated with unappetizing chemicals. Chlorine, tri-sodium phosphate (normally used to clean cement) and hypobromous acid (used to clean swimming pools) are used to treat poultry for salmonella and sterilize feces that might still be on carcasses because the production line speeds are too excessive.

Consumer advocates and concerned citizens joined USDA poultry inspectors to protest this program on the steps of the USDA. Read more on our blog.

As our food system becomes more industrialized, we increasingly rely on chemical cocktails to keep bacteria and other pathogens under control. Since labeling isn’t required, consumers are left in the dark about what chemicals their food may have been treated with. But this is only the beginning of what consumers don’t know about their meat. 

HIMP — the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based Inspection Models Project – isn’t as memorable of a catch phrase as pink slime, but its implications are more sickening. Since 1998, the USDA has been experimenting with this program that gives the job of monitoring the safety and quality of poultry to the poultry processors and drastically increases the number of birds federal inspectors must examine at a time.