Pink slime" is a pejorative for a meat-based product the meat industry calls "lean finely textured beef" (LFTB),[1] "finely textured beef",[2] and "boneless lean beef trimmings" (BLBT).[3] It was also derided as "soylent pink".[4][5][6] In 2001, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the product for limited human consumption, and it has been used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats at a ratio of usually no more than 25 percent of any product; but it is banned from sale for human consumption in the European Union. In the production process heat and centrifuges separate the fat from the meat in beef trimmings.[7] The resulting product is exposed to ammonia gas or citric acid to kill bacteria.[7][8]
In March 2012, an ABC News series about "pink slime" included claims that approximately 70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contained the additive at that time, after which some companies and organizations stopped offering ground beef with the product. "Pink slime" was claimed by some originally to have been used as pet food and cooking oil and later approved for public consumption,[9] but this was disputed in April 2012, by both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) administrator responsible for approving the product and Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), the largest U.S. producer.[10][11] In September 2012 BPI filed a lawsuit against American Broadcasting Company for false claims.[12]