Meat Glue!

As if Pink Slime wasn't enough, get ready for Meat Glue!

That expensive filet mignon you may be dining on may be actually be pieces of cheaper cuts glued together!
Not only are consumers regularly being deceived but this technique tends to embed potentially harmful bacteria deep inside the steaks where heat will not kill them if you eat it on the rare side.

It is astonishing how much industry is willing to deceive and abuse consumers for profit.
What's next? Solylent Green?

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=8642915

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transglutaminase

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EX2ECM/?tag=cpf0b6-20

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Dr Jekell, I'm sorry, friend, but I don't find your post very amusing.

These kind of industry practices are no joke and my intention in posting about the subject was to increase awareness and perhaps generate some interesting, thoughtful and mature discussion.

this may be a good reason to patronize the local butcher shop instead of buying at the chain grocery store. The prices are going to be higher, but there's probably less chance of getting weird stuff in the product.
..or.. go vegan. Not my choice at this time, though.

regards,
Steve K.

Steve K said:

this may be a good reason to patronize the local butcher shop instead of buying at the chain grocery store. The prices are going to be higher, but there's probably less chance of getting weird stuff in the product.
..or.. go vegan. Not my choice at this time, though.

regards,
Steve K.

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You bring up a good point Steve. I'm very fortunate living here in Vermont where we have many local producers and suppliers of grass fed beef, natural lamb, pork and free range chicken (and eggs). In fact, I sometimes buy organically raised beef and eggs from a farmer just two miles up the road from where I live. After many years of watching the Vermont dairy industry and agriculture in decline there has been a fantastic resurgence in small scale farming and food production. There is a whole artisan cheese industry that didn't exist here 20 years ago and local schools, restaurants and grocery stores are featuring locally grown and produced organic produce, meats, dairy products, breads, and other foodstuffs. There is a very interesting and successful program called The Vermont Fresh Network (Farm and Chef Partnership). Perhaps public awareness of things like meat glue, pink slime, genetically engineered plants and what author Michael Pollan refers to as "food-like substances" is a good thing that will change the way things work in this country to some degree. The more people get "fed up" (hmmm...that makes for an interesting and unexpected pun) with large scale agribusiness and "frankenfoods" the more people will demand "real" foods. Indeed, these things do cost more but I've noticed that as organic foods become more mainstream, some of the prices are coming down as they become available in greater volumes.

Thanks EZO.

Certainly all is not well with Western food. From prophylactic antibiotics for healthy farm animals to salmonella it could arguably be said that food is out of control. We give animals chemicals to fatten them up more quickly and at the same time we wonder about the causes of our obesity epidemic.

Many examples.

I also agree that butcher shops are looking better and better.

Where will it all end? It seems as soon as one bad food ingredient is discovered and mitigated (i.e. transfats), the food producers will sneak in five more. It's interesting when you consider some of the same megacorporations produce both foods and pharmaceuticals. Very convenient actually to add ingredients to foods which cause issues, and then you conveniently come out with a magic pill to fix these issues.

I've wondered why I've had less energy in the last ten or so years compared to earlier. I wouldn't doubt some of the things put into foods are responsible. While on the subject of things I wish would disappear from the food chain, high fructose corn syrup has to be number one. Here's an ingredient whose only advantage is it's cheaper than sugar. From everything I've read about it, it's just awful stuff in every way imaginable, yet it's in seemingly everything these days.

Some good posts...thanks guys!

The posts about butcher shops are right on the money. Over the last several decades in my little corner of Vermont I've watched as each and every small butcher shop we used to have has disappeared only to be replaced by large supermarkets. One or two of them has what amounts to a real butcher shop where you can talk to the butcher, ask for recommendations and have your meat custom cut but it's just not quite the same. Even the local food co-op gave up on personal butchering. They prepare ready made steaks, ground meats and other products and put them out in packages even though the meat they sell is natural and organic.

This is changing though. Small shops are finally beginning to re-appear. For example, awhile ago two local chefs who are also trained butchers opened up a complete old fashioned butcher shop offering only local (regional) natural and organic meats and poultry. They not only do old fashioned butchering but as chefs they started to offer ready made dishes and even complete meals made fresh daily. Gourmet fare to go! It's a great concept and they've shown that the demand is there to support it.

I spoke in a previous post about the local food movement here in Vermont. This kind of thing is happening all over the country, not just here in rural Vermont but even in urban areas as well and happily there is more and more demand for it. Some refer to this as the "slow food movement" and locavore movement and it is well worth exploring. Check out http://www.slowfood.com/

And, jtr1962, your comment about the connection between foods and pharmaceuticals is also right on the money. Why do you think we have the FDA?.......The Food AND Drug Administration. Who the hell came up with the idea of regulating food production and pharmaceutical production in one agency? That bureaucracy was not established by accident. This subject definitely invites further discussion and could almost be a whole thread to itself.

Where will it all end?...

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IF it is going to end IMO it has to be the consumer voting with his wallet.

In the last sixty years science has very finely determined what the most beneficial parts of all of our old-fashioned whole foods are. For the most part much of that now goes to animal feed and a whole new science has grown up based on techniques to make the leftover dross taste acceptable to humans.

I'm not at all saying that you can't buy good food out there. I'm saying that if you don't pay attention you may get burned...

Same here in Australia A Current Affair , must have been a slow news night, I'm sure I've seen the exact same content on the same show in the past.

Norm

Norm said:

Same here in Australia A Current Affair , must have been a slow news night, I'm sure I've seen the exact same content on the same show in the past.

Norm

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Hi Norm,

Apparently, this story has been kicking around for at least two years now but as is often the case with certain news items it took all this time to work its way up to the MSM (Main Stream Media). So you may indeed have seen this story somewhere in the past; perhaps on a different show?

BTW, I've done a little more research about this stuff (transglutaminase) and it has been used in many other food items for a long time. I had never been aware of it before but it is the stuff that holds chicken nuggets together as well as imitation crab meat and fish sticks. Ever wonder why the ham or turkey breast you see in the deli case at the supermarket is alway in such a perfectly "formed" rounded shape?

EZO said:

Hi Norm,

Apparently, this story has been kicking around for at least two years now but as is often the case with certain news items it took all this time to work its way up to the MSM (Main Stream Media). So you may indeed have seen this story somewhere in the past; perhaps on a different show?

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This was the exact same vision, it seems to happen on current affairs program's here, they seem to be full of fluff, thinly disguised advertising, and very little real content.

No worries for us vegetarians. Between the piunk slime, meat glue and prions, I'm guessing this will drive more people away from red meat, if not at least a decline in consumption.

PhotonWrangler said:

No worries for us vegetarians. Between the piunk slime, meat glue and prions, I'm guessing this will drive more people away from red meat, if not at least a decline in consumption.

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Veg Heads are not immune.

Australia in this instance but I'm sure that it is happening elsewhere.

Aussie Google
U.S. Google

Norm

Norm said:

Veg Heads are not immune.

Australia in this instance but I'm sure that it is happening elsewhere.

Aussie Google
U.S. Google

Norm

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I agree Norm. It's just that vegetables pose less of a threat, especially when chosen wisely. Veggies can carry salmonella and all sorts of other nasty things; fortunately mad cow disease isn't one of them.

If you think "glued meat" is bad, just wait 'til you discover sausage.

Honestly, I have little sympathy for people who worry about stuff like this. Every other species of meat-eating animal gnaws down to the bones, then cracks the bones open and sucks out the marrow. Meanwhile we get our panties in a twist because our hamburgers aren't entirely made with premium cuts of meat. Talk about First World Problems.

Bacterial infection is at least a legitimate concern, I agree. Humans are self-domesticated and have relatively weak immune systems compared to most meat-eating animals that have to deal with the real world every day. The solution is to cook your food properly. Don't eat red meat if it's still red and squishy in the middle -- even if you like it that way -- and don't eat white meat unless it's white and firm all the way through. If you eat undercooked meat, expect to get sick from time to time, just like every other carnivore on earth. Remember, that which doesn't kill you delays the inevitable.

PhotonWrangler said:

I agree Norm. It's just that vegetables pose less of a threat, especially when chosen wisely. Veggies can carry salmonella and all sorts of other nasty things; fortunately mad cow disease isn't one of them.

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First link when I searched for "vegetable prions":

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ians-may-not-be-safe-from-mad-cow-prions.html

Mad Cow prions are so chemically stable that the required treatment for skin exposure is bathing the exposed skin in sulfuric acid. No, I'm not kidding. So if that's the only way to destroy Mad Cow prions, it's a safe bet they can survive trickling through groundwater from one farm to the next.

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There is no meat glue, it's simply a binder.

It would be impossible to number all the foods that have had a thickener/binder through time.
Not just talking about the last hundred years either,,,

"There's always room for Jello" :wave:

orbital said:

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There is no meat glue, it's simply a binder.

It would be impossible to number all the foods that have had a thickener/binder through time.
Not just taking about the last hundred years either,,,

Go have some Jell-o:wave:

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Or egg noodles. Or sausage. Or paté. Or cake.

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I'll add,
during the time I was graduating with honors from Culinary School,
I read cover to cover 'On Food and Cooking' by Harold McGee