Following up on the ammonia burger post, Grist points to the following YouTube video, from the movie, Food, Inc.:
Scene from the Movie, Food Inc., Showing Manufacture of "Pink Slime"
It’s interesting that the inventor of this process, as reported in the NY Times article,
had a knack for machinery and obtained patents for over two dozen pieces of equipment and methods used in processing beef.
…
One of [the inventor's] early trials involved running electricity through the trimmings to kill bacteria … eventually settled on ammonia, which had been shown to suppress spoilage. Meat is sent through pipes where it is exposed to ammonia gas, and then flash frozen and compressed — all steps that help kill pathogens, company research found.
Electricity?? Sounds a bit like Frankenstein. I’d like to see that research report.
It seems tricky to intimately mix burger stuff with ammonia gas in a way that would provide disinfection. Things like mixing and bubble size would affect the process. I’d think radiation would be far more effective, although radiation would not provide a chemical residual, which the company apparently uses as a selling point: saying the residual helps further disinfect beef material mixtures containing the ammonia-treated stuff.