The risk of contamination is proportional to, among other things, the surface area of the cuts that go in to the ground beef. Using these trimmings is fine except for that. Ammonium hydroxide is one of those chemicals that sounds terrible, but in small quantities is perfectly safe — almost as safe as hydrogen hydroxide. Ammonium hydroxide is a product of normal metabolism.
Medium rare hamburgers are the ideal, but should only be ground from fresh cuts immediately before cooking.
If your stomach acid is lacking for any reason, you must be absolutely careful about food poisoning. If you have normal acid, take normal care.
Steve Martin was right after all:
I have a theory about McDonald’s, that is, everything they make is all one thing, and in the back they have this big vat full of this stuff, these little molds combining, like SPLURT ‘Hamburger!’ SPLURT ‘Malt!’ SPLURT ‘Paper box!’ SPLURT ‘Here’s your change, thank you!’
http://www.beefproducts.com/ammonium_hydroxide.php
So my question is....now that they have dumped a PH leveling ammonium hyroxide addition - what will they now use to keep the food safe?
According to this article Ammonium Hydroxide is also naturally occuring - just because it’s got a chemical name label doesn’t mean it’s not natural too.
Yup - another Alar scare....just ducky
Now if we could just get McDs to team up with Nickleodeon to bring back the Green Slime from the 1980s!