Okay, silly question...
How is this different than hotdogs, smoked sausage, etc.? That is mechanically separated meat...I eat it all of the time.
Do I think it is high quality? God, no, that's why hotdogs are cheap and I don't think anyone tells you that a hotdog is healthy for you. Do I think eating it is a bad thing? Nope.
Yes, it is treated with ammonia to kill off bacteria...but so are whole carcasses before being chilled in the cooler. Heck, meat is often packaged in CO to keep the color of the meat "fresh".
I guess I fail to see what the issue is. Is it the fact that it is being served as a school lunch? Does mixing it in to a hamburger patty at a 70/30 hamburger/MSM ratio really lower the nutritive value of that hamburger that much?
As a college student, I'd obviously much rather have a 100% pure angus ground beef in my hamburger. But if I can get the relative same amount of nutrition from a burger that costs half the price, I'll go with the half price burger, even if that means I'm eating some MSM.
As long as it is labeled as such, I have no problem with it. In a perfect world, yes, we wouldn't have the need for MSM and low(er) quality meat products. Everyone would be able to have small family farmed raised animals bought from local farmers and taken to local butchers. But that isn't feasible to feed the nation, let alone the world.
The butcher is usually very clean, too, so no need for that ammonia washing.
It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a processing facility is less clean, but everything to do with quantity. If a single meat product or carcass is contaminated with bacteria such as E. Coli, it and every carcass that was processed with it is condemned. Companies can't afford to have that happen. So because they need every carcass to pass inspection, and because people can't be trusted to cook their meat properly, they take steps to insure the quality of that carcass by killing off any bacteria that may be present.
And for the record, we buy our beef from a local farmer and go through a local butcher...but I completely understand why we have the current meat industry that we do.