McDonald’s has announced that it will no longer use ammonium hydroxide in its hamburgers.

Often referred to as “pink slime”, ammonium hydroxide is used in fertilizers, household cleaners and even explosives. McDonald’s gave the reason why they decided to stop using the chemical to prepare hamburgers.

At the beginning of 2011, we made a decision to discontinue the use of ammonia-treated beef in our hamburgers. This product has been out of our supply chain since August of last year. This decision was a result of our efforts to align our global standards for how we source beef around the world.

The food industry has used ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent to process meat that would otherwise be inedible.