McDonald’s confirms that it’s no longer using ‘pink slime’ chemical in hamburgers

Ammonium hydroxide, image from KSDK TV

McDonald's announced last week that, as of last August, is has stopped using ammonium hydroxide in the production of its hamburgers. MSNBC reports that the chemical, used in fertilizers, household cleaners and even homemade explosives, was also used to prepare McDonalds' hamburger meat.

And while the announcement is making headlines, you may (or may not) want to know about some other unusual chemicals being used in the production of some of our most-popular foods:

The International Business Times lists some other questionable chemicals showing up in our foods:

Propylene glycol: This chemical is very similar to ethylene glycol, a dangerous anti-freeze. This less-toxic cousin  prevents products from becoming too solid. Some ice creams have this  ingredient; otherwise you'd be eating ice.

Carmine: Commonly found in red food coloring, this chemical comes from crushed cochineal, small red beetles that burrow into cacti. Husks of the beetle are ground up and forms the basis for red coloring found in foods ranging from cranberry juice to M&Ms.

Shellac: Yes, this chemical used to finish wood products also gives some candies their sheen. It comes from the female Lac beetle.

L-cycsteine: This common dough enhancer comes from hair, feathers, hooves and bristles.

Lanolin (gum base): Next time you chew on gum, remember this. The goopiness of gum comes from lanolin, oils from sheep's wool that is also used  for vitamin D3 supplements.

Silicon dioxide: Nothing weird about eating sand, right? This anti-caking agent is found in many foods including shredded cheese and fast food chili.

So, what moved McDonald's to make the change in their hamburger production? In a statement posted on its website, McDonald's senior director of quality systems Todd Bacon wrote:

"At the beginning of 2011, we made a decision to discontinue the use of ammonia-treated beef in our hamburgers.  This product has been out of our supply chain since August of last year. This decision was a result of our efforts to align our global standards for how we source beef around the world."

The U.S. Agriculture Department classifies the chemical as "generally recognized as safe." McDonald's says they stopped using the chemical months ago and deny the move came after a public campaign against ammonium hydroxide by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

You can watch video of Jamie Oliver showing the process of using ammonium hydroxide on meat here:

The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which allows McDonald's to use otherwise "inedible meat."

On his show, Oliver said of the meat treatment: "Basically we're taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it 'fit' for humans."

Even more disturbing, St. Louis-based dietician Sarah Prochaska told NBC affiliate KSDK that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the "component in a production procedure" by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food.

"It's a process, from what I understand, called 'mechanically separated meat' or 'meat product,'" Prochaska said.  "The only way to avoid it would be to choose fresher products, cook your meat at home, cook more meals at home."

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Big freeze stops famed Brussels statue from peeing

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating that is a symbol of Brussels and a major tourist attraction, has had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures, Belgium's tourist office said on Wednesday.

Officials turned off the flow of water through the statue, which has stood on a Brussels corner since the 1600s, out of concern the cold might damage its internal mechanism.

Temperatures in the Belgian capital were set to fall to minus 10 Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) Wednesday night, far below the average minimum for February.

"It all depends on the weather, if the temperatures go up again it will work again," a tourist office spokeswoman said.

The statue, which is on the site of a 15th Century drinking fountain, has more than 800 specially made outfits which city officials use to dress it up during the year. It is one of Brussels' most popular attractions.

For more information about the statue and to see pictures: http://www.brussels.be/artdet.cfm/4328

(Reporting By Ben Deighton; editing by Luke Baker)

Forest Service lets Montana keep Jesus statue on federal land

A statue of Jesus placed on federal land in Montana is stirring controversyThe U.S. Forest Service has decided that a statue of Jesus placed on federal land in Montana can stay there for at least 10 more years.

"I understand the statue has been a long-standing object in the community since 1955, and I recognize that the statue is important to the community for its historical heritage based on its association with the early development of the ski area on Big Mountain," said Forest Service Supervisor Chip Weber.

Perched on a hilltop near the Whitefish ski resort at Big Mountain since 1955, the statue has recently come under scrutiny from The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which says the statue violates the Constitution's separation of church and state.

"We have no objection to shrines like these on private property. That is where they belong," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. "I think it will be very easy to show that this special permit is a sham."

Initially, the Forest Service had ordered the statue removed after the complaint from the foundation. But the Forest Service says they reversed their decision after receiving more than 95,000 comments from the public. And the conservative American Center for Law and Justice started a petition on its website opposing the move.  There was also pressure from local and federal lawmakers, including Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, who praised the reversal in a statement.

Instead, the Forest Service has issued a 10-year land use permit to the Knights of Columbus Council, a Catholic fraternal organization, who first placed the statue on the mountain.

Weber said the statue is also eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

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London's Big Ben is leaning, parliament sinking: reports

LONDON (Reuters) - The landmark clock tower containing Big Ben at Britain's Palace of Westminster, is tilting, while media reports Monday said the mother of all parliaments was slipping into the River Thames, raising fears over its future.

The House of Commons commission, which is responsible for the upkeep of the 19th century neo-Gothic parliamentary estate popular with tourist photographs, was due to meet Monday.

Media reports said it would discuss a surveyor's report which could recommend lawmakers move out for repairs costing up to one billion pounds, while the Daily Telegraph said another proposal might be to sell to Russian or Chinese developers for about 500 million pounds ($779.7 million).

But a commission spokesman said there was no surveyor's report, and members were only meeting to discuss setting up a group to look at general long-term renovation of the grade 1-listed building designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin.

"I think there's been twos and twos added together and come up with we are selling to the Russians, but they won't be talking about anything like that," the spokesman said.

The 96-metre tall clock tower, which houses the bell originally nicknamed Big Ben, leans about 46 cm to the left of its peak.

A construction expert who worked on the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy and a multi-storey carpark under the houses of parliament in central London, said there was nothing to worry about, and it would take 10,000 years to reach an angle of concern.

Professor John Burland of Imperial College London also said work on the underground Jubilee train line in the 1990s had not caused dramatic movement, while a spokesman for the commission said the tilt could have existed since its construction in 1859.

The lean which is just visible to the naked eye had "been there for years," Burland said.

"When I first started work on the car park it was obvious that it was leaning," he told BBC radio.

"It was probably developed at a very early stage because there's no cracking in the cladding and we think it probably leant while they were building it and before they put the cladding on.

"That was a long time ago and buildings do lean a little bit."

He also dismissed concern in the media that parliament was slipping into the Thames, while the commission's spokesman denied the walls around the palace were suffering from a particularly bad subsidence problem causing Big Ben to lean.

The current building, which houses the upper and lower chambers as well as the offices of some lawmakers, was built after its medieval predecessor was largely destroyed by fire in 1834 and has required constant maintenance.

"There's no such thing as an old building that isn't cracked," he said.

"In fact they're beneficial because the building moves thermally more than is caused by the Jubilee Line and the movements concentrated around the cracks and, if they didn't, there'd be cracking elsewhere.

"So these have been there for years and they're certainly not caused by the Jubilee Line or the car park."

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby, editing by Paul Casciato)

$5 here, $37 there: Americans' indulgences add up

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Those venti lattes add up.

U.S. workers spend more than $1,000 a year on coffee and another $2,000 on lunch, with men and young workers more willing to indulge in a $5 coffee than women or older colleagues, according to a survey of Americans' workplace spending habits.

The survey, by Accounting Principals, a unit of staffing services company Adecco SA, found that U.S. workers, on average, spend $37 per week for lunch, but men spend more: $47 a week, versus $27 for women. Men also pay more for coffee -- $26 a week is typical -- and are more likely to complain about the selection of office vending machines.

One of the sharpest differences is between young workers and older ones. Professionals between 18 and 34 spend almost $25 a week on coffee, $11 more than co-workers over age 45, Accounting Principals said. Such free-spending ways may be changing. Nearly half of the young vow to save this year by bringing lunch to the office.

Americans' total annual bill for coffee and lunch is double the $1,500 a year spent on commuting to work, said the poll, which surveyed 1,000 currently employed Americans and was conducted last month.

Office workers are not clamoring for change, however. Asked whether their bosses should upgrade the lunch room or buy better coffee, workers said comfortable chairs and better computer equipment are bigger priorities.

(Reporting By Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Video: Solar storms set Northern Lights aglow

The Northern Lights as seen from Norway

The large solar storm that hit the Earth yesterday was expected to interfere with cell phone calls and GPS transmissions. But the storm was also a boon for photographers--who captured the Northern Lights in full effect.

The aurora borealis is a natural light display typically only visible from parts of Norway but this week's massive solar storm moved the lights south, allowing photographers across northeast England and Ireland to capture powerful images. Ken Kennedy, director of the Aurora section of the British Astronomical Association, told the Daily Mail that the lights may be visible for a few more days:

The Northern Lights are formed when particles from the sun collide with atoms above the Earth's atmosphere. The particles are propelled toward earth at speeds of around 1 million mph by "coronal mass ejections" from the sun's surface. The particles are then drawn to the magnetic field of Earth's northern and southern poles. They appear as a blue, green, purple or red haze in the sky depending on whether they combine with oxygen or nitrogen atoms, and at which altitude these collisions occur.

The Northern Lights were given their name by Pierre Gassendi in 1621, combining the name of the Roman goddess Aurora and the Greek word for the north wind, Boreas.

You can view more pictures from yesterday's storms here.

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Rattlesnake, cobras and an alligator found in man’s apartment

The red-spitting cobra

Florida wildlife recently officers found a veritable deadly reptile exhibit inside one man's Boca Raton apartment: A red-spitting cobra, a puff adder, a uracoan rattlesnake, two false cobras and even a small alligator.

When you read the detailed descriptions of each of these reptiles, it's hard to imagine how anyone would willingly live with these deadly creatures. But that was exactly what Tyler Nolan was doing until he was caught keeping them without a permit. Nolan was cited for several health and safety violations. The alligator was released back into the wild while the snakes were turned over to a professional facility capable of caring for them.

Nolan reportedly cooperated with authorities, telling them that he was in the process of obtaining permits for all of the reptiles. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission first became aware of the situation when they received a tip that Nolan was housing the reptiles without proper authority.

As the group's website notes, Florida is already home to approximately 1,300 native species of fish and wildlife. The commission estimates that the state has also become home to nearly 300 non-native species. The same reason that so many people are drawn to the Sunshine State is what makes the need for proper wildlife regulations essential: "Florida's subtropical climate is ideal for many foreign species to survive. If these species escape or are released, they can easily become established here," the site notes.

And to that end, the state does have some unusual wildlife permits, include those for Florida black bears and Florida panthers. Thankfully, the reptiles were all reportedly in good condition and were being kept in "secure enclosures," according to the Sun-Sentinel.

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