Pink slime
Pink slime is a great new name for the foodstuff formerly known as "finely textured beef."
History[edit]
American cuisine has always revolved around two ingredients: (1) meat and (2) shockingly low prices. American ingenuity has continually devised methods to deliver the latter while seemingly obeying the definition of the former. That is, foods are produced including materials that are technically meat but are much less expensive.
Some of these innovations fail, such as adding grubs and slugs to sirloin steak tips, and serving swordfish filet with the worms "in." However, some succeed, in cases where the consumer is somewhat less interested in the actual contents, such as at the baseball stadium. Hot dogs and hamburgers are apt targets for industrial cost reduction. In the days of the invasion by Mexican dreamers, the beef taco became an additional target. When is the last time the reader had a beef taco and wondered exactly what the "meat" was?
The need for slime[edit]
Sadly, many of these cost reductions deposit millions of dollars in the coffers of rich agribusinesses with Satanic management. Liberals, not having recourse to the coherent argument, likewise pursued cost-reduction, settling on the adjective. Adjectives had been used in the past to give needed clarity to issues:
- Hate speech was speech consisting of unappetizing ideas, such as, "individuals have different aptitudes and capabilities" and "many urban African Americans do not cooperate with the police." This innovation succeeded in eradicating hate from speech, almost as quickly as it eradicated speech.
- Assault weapon was a weapon that had one of several scary attributes, such as a military look to it, or a magazine able to hold ten or more bullets. The campaign against assault weapons "put the nation back to work," by spurring the development of weapons that looked slightly less military, weapons that could hold no more than 9 bullets, and weapons that could hold 10 bullets but the tenth was a dud that shot party noisemakers and fake flowers.
Knowing that America would never renounce either beef or cigarettes, advocates began by a simple attack on the fringe, as they had done with cigarettes: They did not act against fitful, red beef but rather only against disgusting "pink slime."
Instant results without cooking[edit]
The revolting disclosure that some foodstuffs incorporated "pink slime" was spread on American television in 2012 by the same people who admitted that the Bush National Guard documents were forgeries (but forgeries that told an important story). McDonald's and many supermarkets promised never to use the stuff, though Taco Bell stuck to its assault guns. The U.S. Department of Agriculture demanded that school lunches not include the noxious filler, in response to the "public outcry" in which it had absolutely no hand. But Agriculture could not keep food stamps from being used to buy pink slime, because the poor have rights, and ATMs too.
Factories that squeezed pink slime into 50-gallon drums shut down. This economic marvel freed thousands of people to write environmental impact statements and pursue careers at important agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture. Even more jobs were created through the resulting lawsuits for defamation.
In 2014, the unexpectedly high cost of food led to the reopening of these factories, as "pink slime" was a key to holding costs down. Advocates claimed that "finely textured beef" was deceptive, and "pink slime" would be better. This saved time from arguing whether one should say "Obamacare" or the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." In each case, "pink slime" won out. Industry rebutted these arguments, but that was hate speech. Amazingly, although pink slime was reintroduced to lower prices, the fight against it will not re-raise prices.
How to eat pink slime[edit]
The human body eagerly applies hydrochloric acid to everything eaten in amounts that almost always kills it. Separately, the arteries provide handy storage places for excess fat. Cooking food further increases the chance that anything alive in your food, isn't.
If avoiding unpleasant-sounding things like pink slime, food can still be made to taste good by adding salt, which can be smuggled in from Mexico or Canada. If not avoiding them, stirring in rice and vegetables may minimize the sliminess of food, unless one likes it that way. Finally, for many people, the best remedy is extra mayonnaise.
