The term "pink slime" was coined in a United States Department of Agriculture memo. There are two major problems with Pink slime.  It is the connective tissue and muscle from the cow, sometimes meat scraps gathered from the slaughterhouse floor, but mostly the trimmings of the cow.  Essentially, as a former USDA food safety inspector said, "it is not meat and could never be considered beef."  The second problem is that companies add ammonium hydroxide and to destroy harmful microbes, such as Salmonella and E. coli.

Ammonium Hydroxide is a colorless liquid chemical solution that forms when ammonia dissolves in water.  It is found in many industrial products and cleaners such as flooring strippers, brick cleaners, and cements.  Ammonium hydroxide can also release ammonia gas into the air and exposure to it, especially if ingested can lead to:
 
Breathing difficulty (from inhalation)
Coughing
Throat swelling (which may also cause breathing difficulty)
Wheezing
Severe pain in the throat
Severe pain or burning in the nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue
Vision loss
Esophagus, stomach, and intestines 
Blood in the stool
Burns of the esophagus (food pipe) and stomach
Severe abdominal pain
Vomiting, possibly with blood
Heart and blood 
Collapse
Low blood pressure (develops rapidly)
Severe change in pH (too much or too little acid in the blood, which leads to damage in all of the body organs)
Skin Burns, Holes and Irritation
It actually becomes a matter for the center for poison control.

Pink Slime or Lean Beef Trimmings is banned in the UK but In the USA, it is sold by several companies, including Cargill Meat Solutions and Beef Products Inc. Fast food restaurants like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King have recently eliminated pink slime from the meat they serve us in their burgers, as a result of Jamie Oliver shining a light on this practice.  The most disgusting part of this whole ordeal, in my opinion is that the United States Government has ordered 7 million pounds of pink slime to be delivered to public schools to be served to the students for lunch. 

I'm done!

I was reading an article about "PINK SLIME" that caught my eye on shine yahoo.com and then did some research and obtained more information from the huffington post as well as medical news today.com which lead me to today's health tip, "how to prevent salmonella and e. coli poisoning".  Both of these are bacteria that causes food poisoning which leads to severe stomach pains, abdominal cramps, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.  They are both foodborne illnesses, usually coming from undercooked ground beef or ground beef that contains fecal matter in it.  

So, how do we prevent these nasty bacteria from setting up in our bodies?  I have 3 practical tips.

1 Control bacterial growth. Food contains good and bad bacteria. What's important is controlling the growth of bacteria and keeping them at a temperature level that is safe for consumption.  Meat should be in the freezer, thawed out in the refridgerator, and completely cooked.  Food should be stored at the proper temperatures until they are ready to be prepared or served. For example, hot foods such as soup must remain at a temperature of at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold foods must stay below 40 degrees. Using a meat thermometer is very helpful.

2 Wash, wash, wash and scrub your hands, utensils and surfaces before handling food, during and after food preparation and especially when handling raw meat, fish or eggs. It is safer to use paper towels rather than sponges when washing surfaces.  Also, we must be mindful of cross-contamination. Once a utensil has been used on raw meat, fish or eggs, do not re-use it on foods that won't be cooked. Use the same precautions with surfaces such as cutting boards and countertops. It is best to use a separate cutting board for fresh produce.

3 When food is going to be out of the kitchen or in the sun all day, for lunch, picnics, or car trips, we should opt for eggless dishes.  Something like potato salad sitting in the sun or in the summer heat, will quickly reach an unsafe temperature level. 

Those are the three precautionary measures to take for preventing salmonella and e coli poisoning.  *In my humble opinion, I think we should eliminate beef all together from our diets.  Besides the fact that beef is where salmonella and e coli bacteria is poisoning us from, cows are no longer feeding on the grass they've grazed on for hundreds of years and as a result, we have things like madd cow's disease, a result of cattle being forced into carniverous eating and canibalism, which is meat from animals including other cows being ground up and put in their feed as well as fruits, vegetables and grains that are not naturally part of a cow's diet, like corn, which ends up in our system as sugar when we think we're eating protein.  

For more information check out www.ehow.com.  

Nominated by International Labor Rights Forum as one of the top ten anti social and environmental companies of 2012-  Hershey the largest chocolate manufacturer in the United States- makes the list. Hershey's founder, Milton S. Hershey, built the company as a model of responsible corporate citizenship by supporting a range of community efforts including the Milton Hershey School for disadvantaged children.  Unfortunately, the company's lack of compassion for children forced to harvest cocoa in West Africa makes Hershey's a nominee for the Corporate Fool of the Year. Since 2001, instances of forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking on West African cocoa farms have been widely reported.  Recent surveys reveal that hundreds of thousands of children continue to work in hazardous conditions. Hershey gets much of its cocoa from West Africa, yet the company is years behind its competitors when it comes to ethical cocoa sourcing and protecting children against exploitation.</p><p>More information can be found at: http://www.nationofchange.org/who-biggest-corporate-fool-2012-1330872328.


So, what can we do?  Let's hit Hershey where it hurts.  STOP buying Hershey's Products!  If they cannot respect our people and our world, let's make them understand that we cannot support their practices.  Calling for a 2012 Boycott of Hershey's, which includes: 
HERSHEY’S KISSES
HERSHEY’S BLISS 
REESE’S 
KIT KAT 
TWIZZLERS
ALMOND JOY and
ICE BREAKERS 

There's NOTHING sweet about stripping the environment of its natural resources AND exploiting children to do the dirty work.  HERSHEY'S hear us loud and clear: This is not right and we are no longer consuming your products.  FIX THIS MESS!  Build schools to educate the children you are exploiting, Pay local and native adults of the area a fair wage under adequate working conditions and appropriate hours, and Limit the amount of land you devastate yearly to make a profit.  Please stop the production of chocolate goods and spend the rest of 2012 cleaning up the mess you've made in West Africa.    

Nation of Change.Org has a very recent article about companies that are devasting our environment, which of course has a major affect on our health.  One of the top ten on the list is Southern Company which is one of the nation's largest and most polluting utilities.  It mentioned that Southern Company's coal-fired power plants cause over a thousand deaths (1,224), close to two thousand (1,710) heart attacks, 752 cases of chronic bronchitis, and an astounding number of asthma attacks totaling 20,770 yearly.  So today's health tip is natural ways of treating asthma.

First, asthma attacks introduce large amounts of harmful free radicals to your body. You can counteract their harmful effects, which can lead to a number of serious illnesses, by taking extra doses of Vitamin C and Vitamin E each day.

Since asthma is, by nature, an inflammatory disease, you can also treat your asthma by using ginseng. This is a popular Oriental herb that has anti-inflammatory properties and can be used effectively to help manage bronchial irritation.

Use magnesium supplements to open up your lungs' air passages. 500 mg of magnesium, taken daily, can widen your bronchial tubes, facilitating easier breathing and reducing the chances of a severe asthma attack.  Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body and is essential to good health. Eating a wide variety of legumes, nuts, whole grains, and green, chlorophyll rich vegetables will help you meet your daily dietary need for magnesium.

Eating fish, particularly salmon &amp; tuna, nuts, seeds and flaxseed oil -things that contain valuable omega-3 fatty acids have been proven to reduce swelling in the lungs of asthma patients as well.  I would also recommend adding a fish oil supplement to the diet which can be found anywhere that sells vitamins.

Other health tips can be found at www.ehow.com. I urge you to do a little research on the importance of magnesium, and also don't forget to visit nationofchange.org for more information on companies that are ruining our health.  That's the health tip for the day.  Here's wishing you happy, healthy and easy breathing.