Lots of mansplaining on here, I didn’t make any assertions about safety, only repeating what was in the news. Safeway did take this action whether it was for PR reasons or a genuine health concern. I’m not jumping to any conclusions. And the news also felt the need to point out the use of ammonia in the production of pink slime.

Now anyone whose watched bill bye growing up knows the old anecdote about Sodium Chloride (table salt) a perfectly safe compound whose respective elemental parts are on their own highly volatile or caustic. However, while ammonia is important for normal animal acid/base balance in humans in relatively trace amounts, it is primarily observed as a metabolic waste product. both caustic and hazardous in its concentrated form. Ammonia it is classified as an extremely hazardous substance in the United States.

Further, Because of ammonium hydroxide use in its processing, the lean finely textured beef (Pink Slime) by BPI is not permitted in Canada. Health Canada stated that: "Ammonia is not permitted in Canada to be used in ground beef or meats during their production" and may not be imported, as the Canadian Food and Drugs Act requires that imported meat products meet the same standards and requirements as domestic meat. Canada does allow Cargill's citric acid-produced Finely Textured Meat (FTM) to be "used in the preparation of ground meat" and "identified as ground meat" under certain conditions.

Lean finely textured beef and Finely Textured Meat (Pink Slime) is also banned for human consumption in the European Union.

I get that there is a disconnect between public perception and the actual risks when people hear a word like “ammonia”, it’s not like they’re dosing lean meats with polonium. But at the end of the day sanitizing low grade meat by products with industrial chemicals for use as filler certainly isn’t conferring any health benefits to the foods we eat.