In four states, school officials have admitted to using Beef Products Inc.’s lean meat. It has been proved by Government records that this meat, also known as pink slime, has been in products that the states of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, and Virginia have ordered.

According to CBS News, pink slime is a “”Lean and finely textured beef. Pink slime is a low-cost ingredient in ground beef made from fatty leftover meat trimmings from other cuts. The bits are heated to about 100 F and spun to remove most of the fat, then compressed into blocks for use in ground meat.” This product, made by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. (BPI), is then exposed to a puff of ammonia hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella. According to USA Today, there is  pink slime in half of the ground beef and burgers that are sold today.

Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota have also served pink slime to students until they were stopped in Spring of 2012. These seven state schools ordered about two million pounds of ground beef that could have contained pink slime. In total, schools across the nation ordered about seven million pounds of pink slime in the 2011-2012 school year.

Pink slime is cheap and though some food companies claim it’s safe to eat as regular ground beef product it stills contains high levels of disease-causing E. coli bacteria.

Though pink slime is not illegal, most parents do not want their children eating this meat.  Schools order this product because it’s cheap and school lunch budgets are very tight. The price for regular ground beef is very high and is difficult for schools to afford.