Treating Beef with Ammonia Not as Safe as Previously Thought
Several years ago, Beef Products Inc. came up with a new way to remove deadly E. coli bacteria from hamburger meat: to inject beef with the chemical ammonia. The New York Times recently reported that this process of making beef safer is not as effective as federal officials claim. This brand of processed beef is widely used for hamburgers by many fast-food chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King, as well as for federal school lunch programs.
Federal school lunch programs used 5.5 million pounds of the product last year. Records show that E. coli and salmonella has been found many times in Beef Products meat used in school lunch cafeterias. Officials in the United States Department of Agriculture had previously endorsed treatment of meat with ammonia, saying that it destroys E. coli effectively. They believed it was so effective that they exempted Beef Products meat from routine testing for E. coli in 2007.
In July 2009, meat from one Beef Products facility was banned temporarily from school cafeterias due to salmonella, which was the third suspension in three years. However, the facility remained approved by the USDA for sales of the meat to other customers. In August 2009, two 27,000 pound batches of Beef Products meat were found to be contaminated with salmonella. Since the New York Times report, Beef Products meat is no longer exempt from routine testing.