‘Pink Slime’ (Beef Parts Paste With Ammonia) Good For Kids, Says Beef Products, Inc

March 19, 2012

Natural News

By Scott Morefield

“Of course Beef Products Inc. would say pink slime is healthy – they sell it.” –KTRN

In perhaps the most amazing display of unmitigated gall since the Journal of Pediatrics declared mercury ‘good for kids,’ (1) Beef Products Inc. (BPI) told The Daily that its “lean finely textured beef,” treated with ammonia, is good for America’s schoolchildren. Last week The Daily broke the news that the federal government plans to buy beef containing over 7 million pounds of ‘pink slime’ over the next year.

“Including LFTB in the national school lunch program’s beef products accomplishes three important goals on behalf of 32 million kids,” BPI spokesman Rich Jochum told The Daily. “It 1) improves the nutritional profile, 2) increases the safety of the products and 3) meets the budget parameters that allow the school lunch program to feed kids nationwide every day.” (2)

So what’s the real reason?
With their first and second stated reasons being patently absurd, it really just comes down to the third, the almighty dollar. By adding the beef fat and trimmings, known to contain higher levels of E. Coli, salmonella, and other pathogens, then adding ammonia to kill said pathogens, they are able to save 3 cents off the cost of making a pound of beef. (2)

So by adding ammonia to a product that was previously only sold to dog food and cooking oil suppliers, (3) BPI is able to decrease their costs by mixing it with beef and feeding it to children.

Want to vote with your wallet and forgo the ‘pink slime’ infested meat? It might be difficult. Janet Riley, senior vice president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute recently made her case against labeling, telling ABC News, “What you are asking me to put on the label, its beef, it’s on the label, it’s a beef product, it’s says beef so we are declaring … it’s beef.” (3)

By Ms. Riley’s logic, dog food is ‘beef’ too. Perhaps she is using the same standards McDonalds uses when it calls its chicken nuggets ‘chicken.’ (4)

Click here for the full report.

Pink Slime: It’s What’s for Lunch in America’s Schools

March 6, 2012

Take Part

By Megan Bedard

“If you have kids, they should never be buying school lunches. Brown bag it and give them healthy food.” –KTRN

Forget the corn dog and pizza quarrels. Healthy school lunch advocates have a bigger problem on their plates: a 7 million-pound order of connective tissue and beef scraps doused in ammonia, set to hit school lunch trays in coming months.

Despite being dropped in December by McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King, the infamous concoction—known as “pink slime”—is still in high demand, thanks to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) purchase that will keep it on school lunch menus. Yes, keep; it’s been there for years and is set to stay.

The substance is smooshed into meat patties and served up as hamburgers, but the meat product is made from parts of cows “normally destined for dog food and rendering,” reports The Daily.

Microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein and retired microbiologist Carl Custer say the goop is “a high risk product.” The two conducted a study on pink slime in the late ’90s, when JoAnn Smith—known for being buddy-buddy with the beef industry—was serving as undersecretary for the George H.W. Bush administration. (Smith was president of both the Florida Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Association). At the time, Custer sounded the alarms for food-safety concerns, but the USDA ignored his warnings, Custer says, soliciting a second assessment of the slime’s safety.

Because the meat scraps are particularly vulnerable to contamination, South Dakota company Beef Products, Inc. came up with the idea to soak the stuff in ammonia to kill E. coli and salmonella in 2001. The USDA stamped it with approval and shortly thereafter, the slime was available for public consumption.

Click here for the full report.

Congress Pushes To Classify Pizza As A ‘Vegetable’

November 21, 2011

Natural News

By Ethan A. Huff

“I remember as a kid how cool it was to buy my school lunch every day. This is probably why I was the fat class clown. Little did I know my classmates who brown bagged it were the real cool kids.” –Chris Davis KTRN

In an absurd attempt to fight back at federal regulations that greatly limit the amount of junk food that can be served as part of government-funded school lunch programs, Congress has proposed a new spending bill that classifies pizza as a “vegetable.” Reports indicate that the bill would allow for just two tablespoons of tomato paste to be considered a serving of vegetables.

Recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine back in 2009 for reforming subsidized school lunch programs include reducing the use of starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn to just two days a week, cutting sodium use, and promoting the use of whole grains. But the new Congressional bill, which is alleged to be a product of the frozen food industry lobby, seeks to undo these changes.

Proponents of the bill in Congress say it will “prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations and provide greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals.” But opponents insist that the legislation is a thinly-veiled attempt at satisfying the demands of special interest groups rather than promoting better nutrition for public school children.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a group that supports the Obama Administration’s initial lunchroom reform measures, has expressed vehement opposition to the Congressional bill. CSPI’s Nutrition Policy Director Margo G. Wootan recently wrote that the legislation, if passed, “may go down in nutritional history as a bigger blunder than when the Reagan Administration tried (but failed) to credit ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program.”

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

Are School Lunches Healthy?

November 10, 2011

DrAxe.Com

By Dr. Josh Axe

“It’s almost as if they want the kids to be unhealthy, fat, and sick.  If not, wouldn’t they be serving better meals?” –KTRN

Do you eat on the run? Have a drive-thru habit? Grab a daily snack from the vending machine? We’ve heard repeatedly how important breakfast is, but lagging lunches are certainly an overlooked health danger in these times. What about your kids?

Some of the worst meals around are school lunches.We take it for granted that our kids are getting a square meal when we send them school to eat meals established by government guidelines, but our trust is ill-placed.

Consider some of these statistics:

Most schools use nutritional guidelines that haven’t been updated since the 1970’s.
An average cafeteria meal contains 31 grams of fat.
“Fruit-on-the-bottom” yogurt gives your child 30 grams of sugar, not to mention the negatives associated with pasteurized dairy.
80% of the foods offered in vending machines are candy, chips and pastries.
Most granola bars have 15 grams of added sugar.
75% of the drinks in school vending machines are made with artificial juice, high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
75% of high schools and 65% of middle schools have exclusive soft drink contracts.
“Natural” Capri Sun Pacific Coolers have 100 calories and 26 grams of sugar.
Ketchup and salsa count as vegetable requirements in schools.
The USDA reimbursement to schools covers only one vegetable per meal.
2002 data showed that 70% of schools met the nutritional guidelines for some nutrients, 6 to 7% of meals met all the guidelines and 42% of schools offered no fruits or vegetables for lunch.
As of 2007, less than 20% of our nation’s schools met dietary guidelines.

Click here for the full report from Dr. Axe.

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-16-10

Today, Kevin gives you the vital information that can help improve your health and fill your wallet!

Self Help:
Natural Cures
Uncontaminated Meat
The Fountain of Youth
Feed Your Brain
Water Filters For Every Budget
Keep Your Body Safe

Health:
Drug Vending Machines
FDA To Halt Avandia Safety Study
USDA Admits Meat Supply Routinely Contaminated
Study Shows Fluoride May Not Help Teeth At All
U.S. Water Supply Widely Contaminated by Weed Killer
Even Bayer Admits GMO Contamination Is Out Of Control
Artificial Sweeteners Alter How Body Handles Real Sugar
3-D TVs May Cause Health Problems
Man Dies After Medics Misses Disease 6 Times
Brain Games Do Nothing For The Brain
School Lunches Are A Threat To National Security

Government:
Arizona Voters Support Immigration Bill

NWO:
Brain Scan Can Read Your Thoughts

Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
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Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!

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Contaminated Beef Given Out To School Lunch Programs

June 2, 2010

Natural News

By Mike Adams

The USDA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a shocking report (http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/246…) about the condition of the nation’s industrial meat supply. It turns out that a lot of the U.S. meat supply is tainted with veterinary drugs, pesticides and heavy metals.

According to the report, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, or FSIS, continues to fail at properly monitoring the safety of the nation’s meat supply. So tainted meat is regularly being approved for sale, much of which ends up in school lunch rooms where it is fed to — guess who? — our children!

What’s truly disturbing about this is that the USDA knows why meat it getting tainted but it’s doing nothing about it. In fact, the agency regularly allows toxic meat to make its way to store shelves without even trying to stop it.

We’re not talking about microbial pathogens here; we’re talking about chemical contaminants that cattle are eating and then passing on to consumers. These contaminants are not cooked off like pathogens are, and they can actually intensify when cooked and become more harmful.

Pathogens vs. Chemical Contaminants
It is important to make this distinction between pathogens like E. coli versus chemical residues like pharmaceutical drugs and heavy metals. The public usually thinks about food contamination in terms of pathogens but often doesn’t consider the chemical contamination.

The types of contaminants that are ending up in meat are things like veterinary drugs and antibiotics that industrial agriculture uses to keep animals from dying before slaughter. You see, industrial farming is so filthy and unnatural that animals raised there wouldn’t stand a chance without a steady stream of drugs to keep them alive.

The irony about the excess use of drugs and antibiotics is that these things actually end up causing the diseases they are meant to treat and prevent. But the conditions in which these animals live are typically so horrendous that they probably wouldn’t make it to the slaughter without these toxic chemical interventions.

Why aren’t the regulatory agencies doing their job?
This is the same question being asked by OIG in its audit report. The FSIS is tasked with heading up the national residue program with the help of the FDA and EPA, but none of these agencies are actually doing their jobs.

These agencies are supposed to work together to establish tolerance levels for various pesticides, drugs and toxins in an effort to minimize their presence in the food. But according to the report, the agencies have not even established thresholds for many of the dangerous substances being found in meat, let alone test for them.

The agencies did jointly establish a Surveillance Advisory Team (SAT) and an Interagency Residue Control Group (IRCG) to help them accomplish program goals, but since none of them have actually committed to realistically achieving these goals, the whole program has basically gone nowhere.

To continue reading this report, click here.

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 4-21-10

Today, Kevin gives you the vital information that can help improve your health and fill your wallet!

Self Help:
Natural Cures
Uncontaminated Meat
The Fountain of Youth
Feed Your Brain
Water Filters For Every Budget
Keep Your Body Safe

Health:
Drug Vending Machines
FDA To Halt Avandia Safety Study
USDA Admits Meat Supply Routinely Contaminated
Study Shows Fluoride May Not Help Teeth At All
U.S. Water Supply Widely Contaminated by Weed Killer
Even Bayer Admits GMO Contamination Is Out Of Control
Artificial Sweeteners  Alter How Body Handles Real Sugar
3-D TVs May Cause Health Problems
Man Dies After Medics Misses Disease 6 Times
Brain Games Do Nothing For The Brain
School Lunches Are A Threat To National Security

Government:
Arizona Voters Support Immigration Bill

NWO:
Brain Scan Can Read Your Thoughts

Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club

Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!

Click below to watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!

School Lunches Are a Threat to National Security

April 21, 2010

ABC News

By Courtney Hutchison

Unhealthy school lunches pose a threat to national security, according to a group of retired military leaders.

Leaving 27 percent of young adults “too fat to fight,” childhood obesity is jeopardizing military recruitment, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-profit group Mission: Readiness.

The 130-plus retired military leaders making up the organization is joining together to battle the obesity epidemic on the school front.

While putting cafeteria fare on the level of a national security threat may be “dramatic,” “it’s not entirely unjustified” considering how much students eat during the school day, said Karen Glanz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Medicine and Nursing.

In the report, the retirees called for less junk food in schools, better nutrition programs for kids and overall better funding for federally provided school lunches. The group also appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday with Sen. Richard Lugar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to show their support for new legislation on the issue pending in congress.

“Since 1995, the proportion of recruits who failed their physical exams because they were overweight has risen by nearly 70 percent,” said Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We need to reverse this trend, and an excellent place to start is by improving the quality of food served in our schools,” he added.

National School Lunch Program at Work

While school lunches would not be the obvious culprit behind the military’s dwindling recruitment pool, the connection from one to the other works a bit like a chain reaction, pediatric nutrition experts say.

According to the USDA, the National School Lunch Program provided low-cost or free lunches to more than 30.5 million children each school day in 2008.

Through a combination of school lunch and breakfast programs, children “acquire close to 40 percent of their daily calories at school,” said Barbara Moore, president of Shape Up America!

If the food provided at school and the quality of education about nutrition isn’t sufficient to teach good eating habits and stave off childhood obesity, then there’s a good likelihood that these overweight kids will not be fit to enroll in the military, Moore sai, because an overweight child has about an 80 percent chance of remaining overweight as an adult.

So while fattening Sloppy Joes are not the only guilty party in childhood obesity, “better lunches are without a doubt a part of the solution,” she said.

On the military end, the report found that obesity is the number one reason that young Americans are unfit to enlist and also the most likely reason that a new recruit will be discharged before their first contract is even up, Mission: Readiness executive director Amy Dawson Taggart said.

And the trend only increases with each passing year, she said.

The reason school lunch reform is so key, Moore added, is that school is an environment in which “we can get to kids” and influence what they eat. At home, it’s much harder to change these habits, she said.

Soldiers of Nutrition
But lunches aren’t the only change to be made in schools, Glanz noted.

“Blaming it all on food is to not recognize that physical activity is a large component, “she said.

Moore agreed, adding that initiatives to up the quality of food in vending machines as well as improve the education kids get about what food they choose to eat outside of school are also essential.

“Since 2006, there’s been a law that requires schools with federally funded meal plans to also establish a wellness committee to address nutrition and physical activity standards,” she said, but these standards are not universally upheld at this time.

To continue reading this report, click here.