Editor's Disclosure Note: Dr. Mindy Brashears was named one of The National Provisioner's "25 Future Icons" in the November 2016 issue of the magazine. You can read our thoughts on her contributions to the industry here.
Meat expert Dr. Mindy Brashears, testifying for Beef Products Inc. in the ongoing BPI vs. ABC News libel trial, said that it is false to call BPI’s lean fine-textured beef ‘pink slime.’
“’Slime is not beef. It does not meet any of the definitions of beef,’ said Brashears, a food safety and public health professor at Texas Tech University. ‘It is false to call LFTB 'pink slime.' It is not 'pink slime.'’
One of the major complaints listed in BPI’s defamation lawsuit against ABC is the network’s repeated use of the phrase ‘pink slime” to describe LFTB. Stories run by the network against BPI’s products used the phrase more than 350 times, in March and April 2012.
Dr. Brashears was asked by BPI lawyer Erik Connolly about several statements made in ABC reports about the product, including descriptions of it as “filler” made from “low-grade trimmings” once used only for dog food.
Brashears said a filler is a non-meat ingredient such as flour that is added to meat products. The USDA does not allow fillers to be added to ground beef.
"It was false to describe LFTB as a filler because it's beef. It's pure beef. It's 100 percent beef," Brashears said.
A cross-examination by ABC attorney Dane Butswinkas lasted just 15 minutes before the trial ended for the day and was expected to resume today. He had begun to question Dr. Brashears on why some USDA scientists were opposed to LFTB prior to the agency’s approval of the product in 1993.
For more information about the trial to date, visit the article from the Sioux City Journal.
Source: Sioux City Journal
