With all the news about meat in the media these days, it makes you wonder how we can eat it at all. From ‘pink slime’…oh, sorry, I mean ‘lean finely textured beef’ to more than 135 beef products being recalled in Canada to the latest Harvard study showing that even small amounts of meat in our diet significantly increase our risk for heart disease, there seems to be a lot more to your beef than just beef.

The so-called ‘pink slime’ or ‘lean finely textured beef’ is a filler made from beef renderings and treated with ammonia hydroxide. Sounds just yummy! Yuck! The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said the product is safe, but some have questioned what it is doing in the meat at all. The question for me is why only ‘some’ are questioning it. We should be protesting in the streets about what is being sold to us as food!

All this anxiety over “pink slime” has made one thing clear: We don’t always know what we’re getting when we bite into a big juicy burger. It’s a big question and one that demands an answer from those charged with the responsibility of making sure our food is safe.

Some of the most basic questions remain unanswered in the debate over what the meat industry calls safe, in light of this ‘lean finely textured beef;’ this processed meat filler that experts say has found its way into much of the ground beef consumed in the United States.

No answers come easily because of the sheer volume of beef we, as a country, eat and because of the rather opaque way ground beef is made.

If this ‘pink slime’ is so safe and not to be worried about, one has to wonder why the USDA announced that schools involved in the National School Lunch Program can opt out of using beef that contains it. Prior to this latest beef scandal, it was hard for schools to know whether the beef they were buying contained it. See, because pink slime is made from beef…sort of…it doesn’t need to be listed as a separate ingredient. What used to be labeled as ‘ground sirloin’ or ‘ground chuck’ is now mostly just labeled as ‘ground beef’ with no indication of the animal part in use so there is no clear indication of just what type of beef is in the beef you are eating…or our kids are eating.

The biggest part of the problem is that most consumers don’t care. Seriously. If we did; if we demanded better, these types of food crises would not occur. We would not stand for it. Instead we focus on the fat percentages of the package of meat we are considering and have no real interest in the additives that might be in the meat to make it more…meaty or lean or whatever it is manufacturers are trying to sell to you. We buy blindly, hoping someone, somewhere is watching out for our food. We don’t really want to know because that would require us to change…radically.

‘Pink slime’ is lean and inexpensive, so producers love to mix it into fattier cuts of meat to create an overall leaner product…which is our priority. A happy ending, right?

And then Harvard released their new study.

‘Eating any amount or type increased the chances of early death among adults tracked more than 20 years.’ So screamed the headline of the article I read. Yikes!

The study showed that adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat…a steak the size of a deck of playing cards…to our diet was linked to a 13% greater chance of dying. On top of that, if you kick in a serving of processed meat like hot dogs, lunch meats or bacon and the increase jumps to 20%.

Now you may say we’re all going to die so why not enjoy life? First, that’s a lame argument. No one wants to die so why would you want to eat food that could increase your risk of dying sooner? And compromises your quality of the life you lead?

‘Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk,’ said An Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study, published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Looking at data from thousands of questionnaires asking people how frequently they ate a variety of foods, the researchers also discovered that replacing red meat with other foods seemed to reduce mortality risk for study participants. Foods like nuts, whole grains and legumes were shown to reduce risk by as much as 19%.

Finally, the Harvard researchers theorized that eating red meat would also be linked to an overall risk of death from any cause, Pan said. And the results suggest they were right: Among the 37,698 men and 83,644 women who were tracked, as meat consumption increased, so did mortality risk.

Previous studies had shown that red meat consumption increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, all of which can be fatal. Scientists aren’t sure exactly what makes red meat so dangerous, but they suspect can include the iron and saturated fat in beef, pork and lamb, the nitrates used to preserve them, and the chemicals created by high-temperature cooking…not to mention the use of hormones and steroids in the production of meat.

In Canada, more the 135 beef products were recalled because of risk of contamination with e-Coli. Again? When will we get hip to the idea that the way we produce meat is not only unsustainable but unsafe and is damaging our collective health and the health of our over-burdened planet.

Bottom line according to the results of this study? There’s no amount of red meat that’s good for you.

So where’s the beef? What do we eat instead? Try out some of these yummy meatless recipes to get your creative juices flowing…and your appetite for meat off the table!

Wise Guy Chili

My Uncle Ralph, a true wise guy, used to make the best chili. And served with my Aunt Laura’s home- baked bread, it was the “hit” of the “family.” My vegan version is just as spicy as Uncle Ralph’s but won’t shorten your lifespan, since it has no saturated fat to clog your arteries.

Makes 3–4 servings

Ingredients:

• Extra- virgin olive oil
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1 red onion, diced
• Sea salt
• 3–4 teaspoons chili powder (or to your taste)
• Scant pinch smoked paprika
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 small can chopped green chilies
• 1 (32-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 squares dark chocolate (non-dairy), coarsely chopped
• ½ cup quinoa, rinsed well
• 1 cup dried pinto or borlotti beans*, rinsed well
• 1 bay leaf
• Spring or filtered water
• Cracked black pepper
• 2–3 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

Preparation:

1. Place a small amount of oil along with garlic and onion in a soup pot over medium heat.
2. When the onion begins to sizzle, season with a pinch of salt, chili powder to taste (it gets hotter as it cooks), and paprika and sauté for 2–3 minutes.
3. Stir in celery, a pinch of salt and sauté for 1 minute.
4. Add chilies, tomatoes, tomato paste, and chocolate and stir well.
5. Add quinoa, beans, bay leaf, and 3 cups of spring or filtered water.
6. Cover and bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat to low and cook for 1 hour or until the beans are soft.
8. Season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer for 3–4 minutes more.
9. Remove bay leaf and serve garnished with fresh parsley.

*Borlotti beans are Italian beans that are similar to pinto beans in taste and texture.

Spicy Black Bean Burgers

There’s something wonderfully meaty and satisfying about a burger made from beans. And the spice in these babies is just the ticket to getting meat off the table without much of a fuss. The lack of saturated fat and density of nutrients makes these burgers the perfect entrée.

Makes 4 burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 (15-ounce) can of black turtle beans, drained and rinsed well
• ½ red onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• ½ red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and diced
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½ cup silken tofu, pureed
• Sea salt
• Cracked black pepper
• 1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
• Avocado oil for frying
• Romaine lettuce leaves for serving
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 3 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon extra- virgin olive oil

Preparation:

1. Mash the beans with a fork in a large bowl and mix in onions, garlic, hot sauce, red pepper, cayenne, tofu, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Fold in bread crumbs in small amounts to hold the burgers together (you may not need the whole cup).
3. As soon as the burger mixture holds together, stop adding bread crumbs or the burgers will be too dry.
4. Form the bean mixture into thick patties.
5. Heat about ½-inch oil in a deep skillet and fry the patties until firm, about 4 minutes on each side. You can also grill them over medium heat on a gas grill.
6. To serve, arrange lettuce leaves on plates with the burger in the middle of the leaf. Mix together the tomatoes, parsley and olive oil. Mound the tomato mixture in the center of each burger and serve.

Note: You can also serve these in the traditional manner on a bun with the usual condiments.

Beefcake Stew

My dad was a butcher, so when I was growing up, our dinner table was all about meat. Not cool for me, but I did love the veggies— in beef stew, the potatoes, the tomatoes (we’re Italian; there were tomatoes in everything!)—in the beef stew. There’s no beef (so no saturated fat, growth hormones, or steroids) in this version, but it will make you look and feel like a pin-up.

Makes 3–4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 pound seitan, cut into 1-inch cubes
• ⅓ cup arrowroot
• Sea salt
• Cracked black pepper
• 3 tablespoons extra- virgin olive oil
• 3 red onions, quartered
• 4 carrots, chunk cut
• 2 parsnips, chunk cut
• 1 large can (16 ounce) diced tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• Spring or filtered water
• 4 medium Yukon gold potatoes, cubed
• 1 cup frozen peas

Preparation:

1. Cube seitan. Combine arrowroot with a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Dredge seitan in arrowroot mixture and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a heavy pot and pan fry seitan pieces until the coating is crispy, about 5 minutes.
3. Add onions, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, and bay leaves.
4. Season lightly with salt and pepper and add water to almost cover ingredients.
5. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes.
6. Add potatoes, adjust seasonings to your taste, and cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes more.
7. Add more water, if needed to keep a stew-like consistency.
8. Remove bay leaves, stir in peas, and cook 5 minutes more.
9. Stir gently to combine and serve hot.

Image Source: AJ Bombers/Flickr