I’ve been seeing a lot of pink slime in the news lately.

No. That's not Culver's frozen custard. That's meat.

Pink slime is apparently something that’s been in meat for years but is just now getting some media attention thanks to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. What the meat packing industry does is take all the cow stuff that’s supposed to be in dog food like connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, cartilage, buttholes etc. Basically all the cow parts Eastern European pickle and call regional delicacies), mash it up, centrifuge the fat off it, blast it with ammonia gas (ammonia is commonly found in pee, household cleaners and wood treatment) and mix it up with ground beef.

According to the USDA, it’s safe to eat. People have been eating it for years. The National Meat Association says that it’s all beef since it’s made from cows (cow poop is also made from cows. Cow poop is not beef) but the media has launched a smear campaign against pink slime. Maybe people wouldn’t be so wary of it if it was called something else but when you look at this picture what other names can you think of?

I've stared at this picture for ten minutes and the only names I can come up with are "beef sludge" and "meat goo"

Even if the campaign against cow sludge is just propoganda and cattle muck is perfectly safe and nutritious, the campaign is working. McDonald’s and Taco Bell have both pledged to stop using beef gunk in their food. Can you blame them?

You've eaten this. If you've had a burger in the last fifteen years meat guck has been inside you.

Even though this stuff has been labeled inedible by Taco Bell, the USDA is still selling meat ooze to schools for lunch. While the USDA does have a history of throwing kids under the obesity bus for a quick buck (pizza is a vegetable!), they’ve sort of caved recently and are now letting schools choose if they want beef with pink slime in it. So now the schools get to choose if kids get to eat slurryburgers for lunch.

America!