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"McDonald's hamburgers are only 15 percent 'real beefiness.' The other 85 percent is meat filler apple-pie with ammonia, which causes stomach and intestinal cancer."

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  • Food Condom
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We noticed this blogger meme on Facebook and decided to check it out.

We noticed this blogger meme on Facebook and decided to check it out.

Nosotros noticed this blogger meme on Facebook and decided to check it out.

Facebook meme claims McDonald's burgers are fabricated with 85 percent 'meat filler,' which causes cancer

An unsavory Facebook meme is reigniting alarm about the content of Big Macs.

According to the meme, the patties at McDonald'due south are skimpy on existent beef and heavy on "meat filler," which the meme links to cancer. Meat filler is also called "pink slime" -- a nickname the beef industry insiders consider pejorative -- and fabricated waves with consumers several years ago after a 2011 episode of Jamie Oliver'south Nutrient Revolution and an 11-role ABC News investigation.

McDonald'southward said back so that it pulled the production from its grills. Merely a meme circulating this summer suggests otherwise.

The merits has been effectually in some grade since 2002. 1 of the about contempo versions, sourced from an anonymous blogpost on Raw For Beauty, says "McDonald's hamburgers are only 15 per centum 'real beef,' the other 85 percent is meat filler cleansed with ammonia, which causes tummy and abdominal cancer."

Nosotros wanted to know more nigh this "meat filler," what identify, if whatsoever, it has in McDonald'south burgers, and if information technology is linked to cancer.

Big Mac smack

First, McDonald'due south says it no longer uses the "meat filler" in question.

This claim has been debunked numerous times since 2011, and it has besides been addressed multiple times by McDonald's. In an FAQ about its meats, the fast nutrient giant acknowledged that it one time used "pink slime" -- or the industry preferred term, "lean, finely textured beef" -- in its products but has since stopped the exercise:

"McDonald'southward USA had begun the process of removing it from our supply concatenation prior to widespread media coverage on its use and it was completely removed from our supply in 2011. While select lean beef trimmings are safe, we decided to cease using the product to align our global standards for beef around the world."

As for what exactly is in the patties, McDonald'southward writes, "Our burgers in the U.s. are fabricated using merely 100 pct USDA-inspected beefiness. There are no preservatives, no fillers, no extenders and no and so-called 'pink slime' in our beef. The simply affair added to our burgers is a bit of salt and pepper during grilling."

The "pink slime" rumor oozed its way to Down Under, too, forcing McDonald's Australia to release a video and tell a concerned customer, "Balance assured, Dana, information technology'southward not true. Our beef patties are all 100 percent export quality Aussie beef, free of preservatives, additives, fillers and binders."

Despite rising costs of beef, McDonald'due south has no plans to reintroduce lean, finely textured beef (the preferred industry term term for what critics phone call "pinkish slime"), said McDonald'southward spokeswoman Lisa McComb.

Primer on "meat filler"

Merely what exactly is lean, finely textured beef, and is it considered "existent beef"?

When Beefiness Products Inc., began making the production in 1991, the manufacture cheered it every bit revolutionary.

Substantially, the goal is to become every piece of meat off of the bone, so sanitize it and so it is safe to eat. Here's how the process works:

Most 25 pct of the carcass remains later taking whole muscle cuts (sirloins, briskets, ribs, etc). The remaining fatty trimmings with bits of meat still attached are then put through a heat and centrifuge procedure, which separates the fat and produces 93 to 97 percent lean meat, according to BPI.

Because the trimmings frequently are more than susceptible to contagion, the meat is then treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to impale pathogens, like salmonella and E. coli. The U.South. Department of Agriculture does not require ammonium hydroxide to be included in the ingredients, considering it part of the process rather than part of the meat.

The resulting meat has a finer texture. "That's why you wouldn't take a hamburger that would exist made from null merely LFTB – the texture would be softer," said Eric Mittenthal, a spokesperson for the American Meat Institute, a national trade clan.

The lean beef typically comprises no more than 15 percent of a burger, which consumers actually prefer over 100 percent coarse muscle meat, according to Edward Mills, a professor of meat science at Pennsylvania State University. At 25 percent, near people will detect an obvious difference in sense of taste.

So a burger with 85 percent of the lean product -- the amount pinpointed in the meme -- is not realistic.

Several meat science professors nosotros interviewed consider this product to be "real beef," fifty-fifty if consumers don't. That perspective aligns with the U.S. Department of Agriculture definition of meat, which is meat "derived from avant-garde meat/bone separation machinery which is comparable in appearance, texture and composition to meat trimmings and similar meat products derived by hand."

Under this definition, lean, finely textured beef -- the official term for "pink slime" -- is existent beef, and a hamburger containing it could nevertheless exist labeled 100 percent beef. The USDA does not require disclaimers of lean, finely textured beef in meat labels, but some companies, such as food giant Cargill, have opted to sticker their products if it includes this product.

A cancer link?

Now let's look at the potential health effects of eating this kind of beefiness. Could it really lead to stomach and intestinal cancer?

PolitiFact Georgia looked into a claim that "pink slime" is safe and rated it Mostly True.

A 2009 New York Times piece detailed how the much-lauded sanitation process backside lean, finely textured beefiness was not as effective in killing pathogens as BPI said --  even equally the meat spread to school cafeterias through the federal schoolhouse lunch program. Between 2004 and belatedly 2009, the product tested positive for salmonella 36 times out of ane,000, a rate four times greater than other suppliers, the Times reported.

The story also quoted a USDA scientist referring to the product as "pink slime." Gerald Zirnstein wrote to USDA colleagues in 2002, "I do not consider the stuff to be footing beef, and I consider allowing information technology in basis beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling."

The story raised a lot of eyebrows, spurring petitions and boosted coverage from Oliver'southward food show and others. McDonald'southward joined Taco Bell and Burger King in no longer using meat treated with ammonium hydroxide in 2012, the Daily Postal service reported .

Just meat experts said BPI's product is just equally safe -- or unsafe -- equally all other beef products.

The poultry industry has used meat from fat trimmings for 40 years, said Ted LaBuza, a professor of nutrient science at the University of Minnesota. And ammonium hydroxide is used in many food products, such as puddings and cheese, and at levels 10 times higher than in meat, said Mittenthal and Mills.

We could not detect whatever studies to suggest that ammoniated beefiness can lead to stomach cancer or other intestinal affliction. Even if you consume a burger with lean, finely textured beef every day, "you lot wouldn't fifty-fifty come shut" to posing a serious chance to your health --  at to the lowest degree, not because of the ammonium hydroxide, said Mills.

And it'due south fairly common to utilize ammonia and other chemicals -- such as citric acrid, which can leave a sour flavor -- to treat meat, LaBuza said.

Chances of becoming sick are really lower with beefiness from McDonald's compared to a local butcher, who is beholden to less stringent standards than fast food restaurants, he said.

Our ruling

An Internet meme accuses McDonald's of using hamburger meat that contains but fifteen percent "real beef," with the rest made upward of a "meat filler cleansed with ammonia, which causes stomach and intestinal cancer."

McDonald'south stopped using the "filler" in question -- lean, finely textured beef or its somewhat misleading nickname "pink slime" -- back in 2011. When the production was on the grills, the burger near probable contained nowhere near 85 percentage of meat filler, as experts said well-nigh consumers would notice a difference in taste after 25 percentage.

What'south more than, the lean beef does not have whatever documented links to cancer.

We rate this claim Pants on Burn.

Email interview with Janeal Yaney, professor of meat science at the University of Arkansas, Aug. 28, 2014

Interview with Beak Marler, food rubber attorney and publisher of Nutrient Rubber News, Aug. 28, 2014

Email Interview with Eric Mittenhal, spokesperson for the American Meat Plant, Aug. 28, 2014

E-mail interview with Lisa McComb, spokesperson for McDonald's, Sept. 2, 2014

Interview with Ron Adams, professor of marketing at the University of Northward Florida, Sept. 2, 2014

Interview with Ted LaBuza, professor of food scientific discipline at the University of Minnesota, Sept. two, 2014

Interview with Edward Mills, professor of meat science at Penn State University, Sept. 3, 2014

Youtube, Jamie Oliver'south Food Revolution: Pink Slime - seventy% of America's Beef is Treated with Ammonia, Apr. 12, 2011

ABC News, Pink Slime and You, Mar. 7, 2012

Raw for Beauty, McDonald's Hamburgers are only fifteen% "Real Beef", April. ii, 2014

USDA FSIS, Meat and Poultry Labeling Terms, June v, 2013

Cornell University, 9 CFR 319.15 - Miscellaneous beef products, October. 31, 2001

Cargill, Cargill announces new labeling for Finely Textured Beef, Nov. 5, 2013

New York Times, Safe of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned, Dec. thirty, 2009

Beef Products Inc., History, 2014

Beef Products Inc., LFTB Often Asked Questions, 2014

USDA FSIS, SAFE AND SUITABLE INGREDIENTS USED IN THE Production OF MEAT, POULTRY, AND EGG PRODUCTS, Aug. v, 2014

Consumer Federation of America, Argument of Chris Waldrop, Consumer Federation of America'southward  Director of Food Policy on Lean Finely Textured Beef, Mar. 26, 2012

National Consumers League, The undeserved reputation of "Pink Slime" is tested once more, Sept. 2013

Daily Mail, Victory for Jamie Oliver in the U.S. every bit McDonald's is forced to stop using 'pinkish slime' in its burger recipe, Jan. 27, 2012

Associated Press, 5 FOOD WRITERS SUBPOENAED IN 'PINK SLIME' LAWSUIT, Jul. 29, 2014

TIME, The Surprising Reason 'Pinkish Slime' Meat Is Back, Aug. 26, 2014

Los Angeles Times, Ask Laz Pink slime is back. Question is: Who'due south using it?, Aug. 15, 2014

Consumerist, McDonald's Reminds Customers That Information technology No Longer Uses Pink Slime In Burgers, May xiii, 2014

Business Insider Weekly, McDonald's Addresses Claims About 'Pinkish Slime' In Its Beef (Again), May xiii, 2014

Snopes, 100% Beef, Apr. 8, 2014

McDonald's, Meats, 2014

Youtube, Is it truthful your burgers incorporate meat filler and pink slime?, Mar. 2, 2014

McDonald'due south, Your Questions, 2014

PolitiFact, Don't call it pink slime, Georgia official says, Apr. ten, 2014

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