The massive grass roots campaign over the topic of "pink slime" which seemingly came out of nowhere, and led to the bankruptcy of the company producing the substance, shows just why product branding can be such a profitable industry. Had the company taken a hint from the Goldman playbook and dubbed the peculiar substance an "Asymmetric Meat Initiative" all would have been forgotten in days, if not hours. Unfortunately, the mechanical process of "lean finely textured beef", aka pink slime, is just the beginning. As ProPublica shows, after pink slime, there comes Mechanically Separated Meat, aka "White Slime", and then Advanced Meat Recovery. And if recent history is a guide, any entities that have an equity stake in these last two processes should be afraid, very afraid, because the fate that befell the first, is about to visit the other two, in the process making such other 'delicacies" as bologna, hot dogs, taco filling, and meatballs surge in price once the traditional cheap "filler" substance is taken away by the same people who consume said meat byproducts in droves, in the process likely ending the concept of the dollar menu for good as restaurants have no choice but to resort to quality food. Ironically, will fat America itself, terrified by concepts such a colored slime, be responsible for its own weening from some of the worst products on earth, and in the process raise the price of food, and force itself to eat less?
Will the end of the "slimes" be the one savior of the massively underfunded US welfare state as America gets healthy and lean again? Alas, we doubt it. But one can always hope.
From ProPublica:
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