As a chemical known for its industrial use in producing rayon, rubber, fertilizer, and plastic, and its use as a household cleaner, this chemical is really useful.
In 2012, McDonald's, the fast food company, announced that it would no longer be using ammonium hydroxide in its hamburger patties.
The question raised by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and others at the time was this: what was it doing in ground meat in the first place?
Killing pathogens, that's what. In order to keep e. Coli out of the meat supply, suppliers to McDonald's, such as Beef Products, Inc., added ammonia to their lean finely textured beef trimmings. Untreated beef naturally contains some ammonia (the pH of beef is about 6). Beef Product's treatment raised the pH to 10. Later, in response to customer concerns (and complaints about taste and smell), they used a little less and lowered the pH to 8.5. Ammonium hydroxide was declared safe by the Food and Drug Administration in 1974.
By 2012, critics of the food industry were calling the lean finely textured beef "pink slime," as the addition of ammonia to the meat trimmings created a soft and malleable texture.
M. Alex Johnson, "McDonald's drops use of gooey ammonia-based 'pink slime' in hamburger meat." MSNBC.com. Jan. 31, 2012.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mcdonalds-drops-use-gooey-ammonia-based-pink-slime-hamburger-meat-flna1c6435956 (accessed October 25, 2022)
Tamika Sims, "What’s the Beef with “Pink Slime?”" Food Insight. June 5, 2017. https://foodinsight.org/whats-the-beef-with-pink-slime/ (accessed October 25, 2022)
CosmeticsInfo.org. "Ammomium Hydroxide."
http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient_details.php?ingredient_id=631 (accessed February 6, 2012)
Michael Moss. "Safety of Beef Processing Method is Questioned." New York Times. December 30, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html (accessed February 6, 2012)