Have Campaign Contributions Persuaded Branstad, Republicans to Back 'Pink Slime?'

You’ve how you feel about "pink slime."

That's the controversial beef product made from scraps of leftover meat and treated with ammonia. It's the one that's been faster than Tickle Me Elmo.

"I am furious that for years I did not know what I was feeding my children, not to mention myself," said a Patch commenter. "This is one of the worst food stories I have heard ever."

You may know that Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has been in the news lately defending the product, calling the media coverage a "smear campaign." He has called for a federal probe into the matter.

“It’s time to end the smear campaign and to stop the use of inaccurate, inappropriate and charged words that are designed to scare people,” Branstad said in a news conference after taking a tour recently of a Beef Products Inc. plant, which manufactures “pink slime,” according to Radio Iowa.

But, according to a recent story from the Des Moines Register, in 2010, Branstad was gifted $152,000 in campaign money from Eldon and Regina Roth, owners of Beef Products. The company has donated nearly $800,000 over 10 years to Republicans vying for various state and federal elected offices, compared to $28,000 to Democrats, according to the Register report. Republican governors from multiple states have joined in defending the beef product. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, who received no donations from Beef Products, has also defended the beef product.

There are two (or more) sides to every story. Some comments on our aforementioned article defended the product, like user “Proud UNI Grad.”

"It is beef. It is chopped and processed like no other, but it is beef" he wrote. "That's like getting all riled up about the smoothy maker using pre-mushed up bananas in the smoothy."

Given that, what do you think? Is Branstad beholden to the company that donated $152,000 to him, or is he just reminding us that we shouldn’t freak out over some mushed up beef?