Medpedia

Pink slime is made from the fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, which are notoriously rife with pathogens like E. coli 0157 and antibiotic-resistant salmonella. Once swept up, the scraps are sent through a series of machines, which grinds them into a paste, separates out the fat, and laces the substance with a mixture of water and ammonia (ammonium hydroxide) to kill those pathogens.