Join Us Today -  Tell the USDA NO More Pink Slime!

Don't let our politicians slimewash Industrial Meat's latest outrage -  Join Us!

Join us to "Get the Slime Out" in our School Lunches - Not ever, ever again!

Dear Thomas,

If you thought that Pink Slime was going away just because the ammonia-treated meat filler byproduct has received a ton of bad press and the USDA finally said it would allow it to be labeled, think again. Right now, Beef Products Inc., Cargill and the Industrial Meat Empire are launching an all out spring counter offensive to keep their degraded meat products on our shelves and in our nation’s school lunch program.

In case you haven’t heard, an estimated 70 percent of hamburgers sold in the U.S. contain a byproduct of left over beef parts treated with a blast of ammonia hydroxide that 20 years ago was sold as dog food. Yes, dog food!

Already McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell have removed Pink Slime from their products, but we need to make sure that our nation's children don't get stuck with this garbage in their school lunches. This year the USDA has already promised to buy 7 million pounds of Pink Slime. Our children deserve better!

Click here to tell the USDA “No Pink Slime in Our Children’s School Lunches – not now, not ever!”

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/570?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=9

Last week, Iowa State University became ground zero in Industrial Meat’s efforts to revive Pink Slime’s lagging public image. In what can only be called an appalling PR stunt to promote industrial agriculture, Iowa governor Terry Branstad and Congressman Steve King held a press conference at Iowa State, one of the nation’s leading land grant universities and turned it into a propaganda backdrop for slimewashing.

Branstad took to the stage wearing a T-shirt with Industrial Meat’s new slogan, “Dude it’s Beef” and railed against what he claimed was a “smear campaign” against a "safe" and "nutritious" product. Branstad’s enthusiasm for slime is not surprising considering that in 2010 his campaign received more than $150,000 in political donations from Regina and Eldon Roth, the founder of Beef Products Inc., the world’s largest producer of Pink Slime, aka "lean, finely textured beef" (LFTB).

Rather than sit back and watch this latest Industrial Ag PR effort unfold without a fight, Food Democracy Now! joined with family farmers to hold our own rally, “Truth: Pink Slime vs. LFTB”, so farmers could speak out against the blatant politicization of the latest scandal to emerge from our industrial food system.

Join us and family farmers in taking back our food supply! Click here to tell the USDA to make Pink Slime a thing of the past.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/570?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=13

We stood with more than a dozen farmers and ranchers and nearly 50 students and fellow Iowans, who showed up to deliver the message that Pink Slime was not a good food product for our nation’s children nor was the product good for family farmers. It’s time that America’s farmers and consumers were given priority in the USDA’s policy decisions over Industrial Meat Factory’s profits.

As cattle producer Mike Callicrate, who travelled from Colorado for the “Truth: Pink Slime vs. LFTB” rally said, “Today it’s industrial ag versus family farm agriculture”.

For the past several decades the Industrial Meat slaughterhouses have been winning, pushing hundreds of thousands of family farmers off the land and degrading the quality of our food.

But you can change that. With your help we can win this fight. 

Join Food Democracy Now! and family farmers everywhere in standing up for safe, sustainable and healthy food. Don’t let the USDA dump 7 million pounds of this garbage on our kids.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/570?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=16

Thanks for participating in food democracy,

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! team

Sources:

1. “70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’” ABC News, March 7, 2012
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/563?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=18

2. “Schools will get to opt out of 'pink slime' beef”, Associated Press, March 15, 2012
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/564?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=20

3. “Pink Slime: Combo of Connective Tissue, Scraps Hidden In Your Kid’s Lunch”, FoxNews, March 8, 2012.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/565?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=22

4. “Partners in ‘slime’: Feds keep buying ammonia-treated ground beef for school lunches”, The Daily, March 5, 2012
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/566?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=24

5. “BPI’s Response to Outrage over Ground Beef? 3 Governors and a T-shirt”, Appetite for Profit, March 30, 2012

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/567?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=26

6. “Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned”, The New York Times, December 30, 2009
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/568?akid=528.51895.NuckXm&t=28

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