Slime and Fat

This week I am promoting healthy eating and Food Revolution Day to the Kindergartners and fifth grade classes at my son's school. I plan to do a few demonstrations of which involve sugar, fat and pink slime. I am looking forward to keeping the attention of the fifth graders by adding that "yuck" factor so I am hoping that my fabricated slime and fat will do the trick. The fat is actually homemade playdoh and the slime I purchased from Steven Spangler Science Experiments in which I added the pink coloring. My goal is to teach the students about what is in their food.

Pink slime has received a lot of attention over the past few months. Pink slime is also known as lean finely textured beef (LFTB) and boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT). It is considered a beef based food additive that has been added as an inexpensive filler to fast food and some school districts hamburgers. It consists of finely ground beef scraps, sinew (tendon), fat, and connective tissue which is removed through a mechanical process and then treated with ammonia gas or citric acid to kill any E.coli, salmonella or other bacteria. It is ground up then pressed into blocks which is then flash frozen and added to beef products. In February McDonald's announced that they no longer were adding pink slime to their hamburgers.

Fat is not necessarily evil unless it is a bad fat like saturated or trans fats. These fats wreak havoc on the body and over time can contribute to major health issues. Trans fats have slowly been removed from most foods and can be found on food labels.

It's time to really think about what goes into the foods that we eat. Take a look at the food labels and educate yourself on what is going into your child's body.

 

Jackson had a great time playing with the pink slime. Since we don't consume fast food or hamburgers for that matter, I don't think that he quite understood that these ingredients could be found in something that is commonly ingested.

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