“Pink Slime” and The FDA G.R.A.S. list  

Recent eye opening in the world of “pink slime” hamburger meat additive gets noticed by ABC News, Mom’s and others looking for a food cause to focus their attention upon.   McDonald’s and others are now vowing this food additive on the FDA list of approved additive, known as GRAS, will never make it into a Big Mac again. 

 The FDA’s G.R.A.S. list is food and food additives “Generally Recognized as Safe”.   It is a poor use of the word “Generally” which calls to mind the synonyms of normally and usually in the description of the list.    I personally like the idea of calling it the “Usually Recognized  as Safe” or URAS, because as a food manufacturer it is truly UR-AS if you get in trouble with a food additive.  The FDA has a published list that tells food manufacturers how much of anything that can be added to food. 

In theory the mandate of GRAS makes sense as its definition  reads: “any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to pre-market review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive.”   The good news is the FDA has to approve them but the bad news is they also approve prescription drugs, and you understand from the news its success rate.  The list changes constantly as food scientists work to find additional food additives that can prolong shelf life, recreate texture,  improve color etc… of what has been served up as food.  When I read the G.R.A.S. additives that are currently awaiting approval,  I would think that Mom’s would approve of “Rice Bran Fiber” but might raise concern with “Magnesium dihydrogenpyrophosphate (MDPP)”.  Don’t worry the second one can only be used at 2-15 grams per kilogram, if you understand the metric system.

By maintaining and updating a G.R.A.S. list, the FDA allows the food manufacturing community to find levels of anything they can dream of that can improve their bottom line.  The “pink slime” I mentioned above is the scrapings of the floors of slaughterhouses that someone looked at one day and wondered how they could market meat and meat by products that were obviously being wasted down the drain.    In many cases it may not actually hit the floor, but the bits of meat scraps and connective tissue that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens did not fit the “pink slime” story as well.  Google “pink slime” to see what I mean.  They either needed to avoid having the product hit the floor or find a way to harvest it once it reached the floor to avoid the loss of a revenue stream.     

Don’t get to down on meat products, every part of the food industry has its dark little additive secrets that the news people have not added to their story list yet.

It is a little concerning and very obvious that the primary reason that items are submitted for approval are to help companies  make a profit in the food industry.  Why else would anyone work so hard to add Hydrolyzed sardine protein to foods?  “Intended Use:  Ingredient in beverages and breakfast cereals, frozen dairy desserts and mixes, milk and milk products, fish products, pastas, hard and soft candy, soups and soup mixes, and processed fruits and vegetables and fruit and vegetable juices. “

Take a look.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodIngredientsPackaging/GenerallyRecognizedasSafeGRAS/default.htm