McDonald's 'Pink Slime': Fast Food Chains Drop Additive from Meat

McDonald's declared it will stop using so-called pink slime as an additive in its hamburgers.

Pink slime is a term dubbed from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver for spare beef trimmings treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria. Oliver decried the fatty, rejected meat on his show, Food Revolution last year.

Basically, we're taking a product that would be sold at the cheapest form for dogs and after this process we can give it to human, Oliver said on his show.

McDonald's said in a statement last week that The decision ... was not related to any particular event, according to CBS News.

Taco Bell and Burger King also both vowed to stop using the slime earlier this month, reported the The Huffington Post.

The Department of Agriculture still approves the beef trimmings, made by Beef Product Inc. The agency argues that although the meat is taken from parts of the cow more likely to harbor pathogens, the ammonia treatment purges bacteria.

Pink slime isn't only popular among fast food chains. Oliver said on his show it makes up 70% of the hamburger beef in America.

Oliver isn't the only one to raise concerns about the filler. A 2009 New York Times investigation connected the processed meat to E. coli and the 2010 documentary Food, Inc. called for the USDA to ban the substance.