Remember the “pink slime” scare that was really nothing more than a safe, affordable, healthy product used to increase the efficiency of consuming livestock?  Beef Products, Inc (BPI) intends to ensure that they can stay in business with a 1.2 billion dollar lawsuit against ABC for continuing to present false and misleading information about lean finely textured beef (LFTB) even after it was provided with factual information about the product.

Read and listen to Brownfield Ag News’s coverage of the story here.

BPI claims that the company lost 80 percent of its business in 28 days following the ABC reports.

This lawsuit will be an interesting one to watch, as it is sure to be precedent setting for the ag industry. 

If you need a refresher course on the myths ABC shared about BPI and it’s product, lean finely textured beef, read this post published on the day the story blew up in the media and take a look at this image describing the use of ammonia to increase food safety of the product.

Image caption: One accusation of the media was that the lean finely textured beef product was washed in ammonia before being included in food products.  In reality, this practice is widely accepted through the food processing industry as a way to alter the pH of foods to inhibit bacteria growth.  This image shows the ammonia contents of a typical bacon cheeseburger.