Social media drives change over ‘pink slime’ – you know, the meat
Mar 15 2012 in Uncategorized by williamcoit
ALBANY, N.Y. – “Pink slime” just went from a simmer to a boil.
In less than a week this month, the stomach-turning epithet for ammonia-treated ground beef filler suddenly became a potent rallying cry by activists fighting to ban the product from supermarket shelves and school lunch trays. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to announce today it will offer schools choice in ground beef purchases in response to requests from districts.
Though the term has been used pejoratively for at least several years, it wasn’t until last week that social media suddenly exploded with worry and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools lit up, quickly garnering hundreds of thousands of supporters.
“It sounds disgusting,” said food policy expert Marion Nestle, who notes that the unappetizing nickname made it easier for the food movement to flex its muscles over this cause.
“A lot of people have been writing about it. Therefore, more people know about it, therefore more people are queasy about it, particularly when you start thinking about how this stuff turns up in school lunches,” said Nestle, a professor at New York University’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health.
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