# Pink Slime in Tuna?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 28, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033 "2012-03-28T12:01:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mooredh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mooredh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mooredh)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/1 "2012-03-28T12:01:21Z")

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So we all now know that pink slime is an intentional ingredient in hamburgers.

Well, I open cans of tuna and routinely find, at the bottom and surrounding the nice big firm chunks, some cottony pink mush that looks for all the world like pink slime.

What is it?

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**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/2 "2012-03-28T13:16:13Z")

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Uh, smooshed up tuna meat?

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/3 "2012-03-28T19:05:13Z")

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Why would they put beef byproduct in tuna? Is this light tuna, white/albacore, or something else? The former is often skipjack tuna, but occasionally others, and the latter is uhh… albacore tuna. Post pics for clarification, but if it’s what I’m thinking of, I agree with **Dorjän**.

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**Author:** ![mooredh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mooredh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mooredh)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/4 "2012-03-29T11:06:51Z")

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Well, surely it wouldn’t be a meat product, but could be ground-up ‘other-parts-of-the-fish’, otherwise unusable…which by inclusion in the can get sold at a pretty high price per pound.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/5 "2012-03-29T11:54:44Z")

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Canned foods are typically cooked in the can to suppress the action of bacteria etc (which is why canning works at all). If you pressure-cooked a piece of tuna in oil or brine in any other container, I bet you’d see the same result - it’s fragments of the meat combined with juices exuded during cooking.

Edited to add: Smaller bits of the tuna meat that can’t be sold as canned tuna steak are canned and sold as ‘tuna chunks’ and ‘tuna flakes’ (in descending order of size)

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**Author:** ![mooredh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mooredh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mooredh)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/6 "2012-03-29T22:14:25Z")

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Aha! A good explanation; quite plausible. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![Woodenspoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bc79bd/32.png) [@Woodenspoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woodenspoon)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-slime-in-tuna/617033/7 "2012-03-30T06:29:21Z")

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tuna like most fish meat readily flakes during processing.  
fish meat comes off the bones too easily to require anything close to pink slime treatment, cooked fish pretty much jumps off the bones.