WARNING! Do Not Read This If You Have Ever Eaten A Fast Food Burger
Window cleaning chemical injected into fast food hamburger meat.
If you’re in the beef business, what do you do with all the extra cow parts and trimmings that have traditionally been sold off for use in pet food? You scrape them together into a pink mass, inject them with a chemical to kill the e.coli, and sell them to fast food restaurants to make into hamburgers.
That’s what’s been happening all across the USA with beef sold to McDonald’s, Burger King, school lunches and other fast food restaurants, according to a New York Times article. The beef is injected with ammonia, a chemical commonly used in glass cleaning and window cleaning products.
This is all fine with the USDA, which endorses the procedure as a way to make the hamburger beef “safe” enough to eat. Ammonia kills e.coli, you see, and the USDA doesn’t seem to be concerned with the fact that people are eating ammonia in their hamburgers.
This ammonia-injected beef comes from a company called Beef Products, Inc. As NYT reports, the federal school lunch program used a whopping 5.5 million pounds of ammonia-injected beef trimmings from this company in 2008. This company reportedly developed the idea of using ammonia to sterilize beef before selling it for human consumption.
Aside from the fact that there’s ammonia in the hamburger meat, there’s another problem with this company’s products: The ammonia doesn’t always kill the pathogens. Both e.coli and salmonella have been found contaminating the cow-derived products sold by this company.
This came as a shock to the USDA, which had actually exempted the company’s products from pathogen testing and product recalls. Why was it exempted? Because the ammonia injection process was deemed so effective that the meat products were thought to be safe beyond any question.
What else is in there?
As the NYT reports, “The company says its processed beef, a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips, is used in a majority of the hamburger sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles. Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a ‘processing agent’ and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.”
Fascinating. So you can inject a beef product with a chemical found in glass cleaning products and simply call it a “processing agent” — with the full permission and approval of the USDA, no less! Does anyone doubt any longer how deeply embedded the USDA is with the beef industry?
Apparently, this practice of injecting fast food beef with ammonia has been a well-kept secret for years. I never knew this was going on, and this news appears to be new information to virtually everyone. The real shocker is that “a majority” of fast food restaurants use this ammonia-injected cow-derived product in their hamburger meat. It sort of makes you wonder: What else is in there that we don’t know about?
“School lunch officials and other customers complained about the taste and smell of the beef,” says the NYT. No wonder. It’s been pumped full of chemicals.
There are already a thousand reasons not to eat fast food. Make this reason number 1,001. Ammonia. It’s not supposed to be there.
You can get the same effect by opening a can of dog food made with beef byproducts, spraying it with ammonia, and swallowing it. That is essentially what you’re eating when you order a fast food burger.
It’s almost enough to make you want to puke. If you do so, please aim it at your windows, because ammonia cuts through grease like nothing else, leaving your windows squeaky clean!
Source: NY Times
Natural News
Dr. Michael Wegmann's Thoughts:
Eating well is all about discipline. It's also about understanding how your food is processed. Here's a simple idea to help you overcome your craving for fast food. Fast food = Dog Food. That's easy to remember, and chances are you would never consume dog food. Below are some tips to help you get started.
Tips for Eating At a Restaurant
Most restaurant portions are way larger than the average serving of food at home. Ask for half portions, share an entrée with a friend, or take half of your dish home.
Here are some other restaurant survival tips:
* Ask for sauces and salad dressings on the side and use them sparingly.
* Use salsa and mustard instead of mayonnaise or oil.
* Ask for olive or canola oil instead of butter, margarine, or shortening.
* Use nonfat or lowfat milk instead of whole milk or cream.
* Order baked, broiled, or grilled (not fried) lean meats including turkey, chicken, seafood, or sirloin steak.
* Salads and vegetables make healthier side dishes than french fries. Use a small amount of sour cream instead of butter if you order a baked potato.
* Choose fresh fruit instead of sugary, high-fat desserts.
Tips for Eating At the Mall or Fast-Food Place
It's tempting to pig out while shopping, but with a little planning, it's easy to eat healthy foods at the mall. Here are some choices:
* a single slice of veggie pizza
* grilled, not fried, sandwiches (for example, a grilled chicken breast sandwich)
* deli sandwiches on whole-grain bread
* a small hamburger
* a bean burrito
* a baked potato
* a side salad
* frozen yogurt
Choose the smaller sizes, especially when it comes to drinks and snacks if you have a craving for something unhealthy, try sharing the food you crave with a friend.

When you say the USDA is embedded in the “Beef Industry,” you need to be specific. The USDA is owned by meat packers and large conglomerates such as Cargill and BPI (Beef Products, Inc). The meat packers and conglomerates have both the family ranchers and the consumers by the short hairs. The one way to rebel is to buy your beef directly from your nearest rancher and to have the beef custom cut at your local butcher shop. This benefits both consumer and rancher in multiple ways.
*First, it gives the rancher premium prices for the cattle while giving the consumer a huge discount from grocery store prices for premium cuts of meat.
*Second, you know where your meat comes from and how it was raised while the rancher gets to know the ultimate purchaser of the beef and will raise the meat according to the customer’s desires.
*Third, it greatly weakens the power of the meat packers’ cartel and fosters healthy market competition.
There are other, unseen benefits that I haven’t named, but it is better all around, with one exception. In some locations.