The industry-wide secret butchers don't want you to know about: The special product called Meat Glue sticking your steak together.
The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s dirty little secret. It’s “meat glue.” It makes pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or fish that would normally be thrown out stick together so closely that it looks like a solid piece of meat.Restaurants and butchers can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too.Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein.
The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s dirty little secret. It’s “meat glue.” It makes pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or fish that would normally be thrown out stick together so closely that it looks like a solid piece of meat.Restaurants and butchers can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too.Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein.
Just sprinkle a teaspoon of powdered transglutaminase on various meat scraps, knead them together and roll them up in plastic wrap. Put in the fridge and 6 hours later, you have an easily-sliced piece of meat that looks like real fillet.The amount of bacteria on a steak that’s been put together with meat glue is hundreds of time higher.Meat glue is a darker product altogether.The bacterial count in patched-up meat is extremely high because scraps that were outside pieces but are now glued together inside are hard to cook thoroughly.
Another reason to eat less meat, buy organic or from a trusted source, and take nothing for granted in terms of food safety. Makes you think twice about what’s really in popular food-chain hamburgers, too. Even kosher and halal meat must be questioned – there is a kosher version of meat glue, Activa TIU.You don’t want to be inhaling powder that makes your blood clot abnormally.
Technically called thrombian, or transglutaminase (TG), it is an enzyme that food processors use to hold different kinds of meat together. Chicken nuggets are also often bound with meat glue, as are meat mixtures meant to mold like sausage but without the casing. Meat glue is also used by high-end chefs.
How it works
TG is an enzyme that catalyzes covalent bonds between free amine groups in a protein, like lysine, and gamma-caroxminid groups, like glutamine. These bonds are pretty durable and resist degradation once the food has been formed.Thrombin is made from pig or cow blood, though you'll see it on labels, if at all, as "composite meat product." Many Europeans are outraged at their governments'for approval of the product: Food Safety News reports that a member of the Swedish Consumers' Association, for example, has stated, "We do not want this at all--it is meat make-up."
The European Parliament has voted to ban bovine and porcine thrombin used as an additive to bind separate pieces of meat together into one piece. The House said the meat glue has no proven benefit for consumers and might mislead them instead.
Europeans – hopefully – aren’t eating Frankenstein meat now. There are no regulations against meat glue outside of Europe, however. The main objection to it is that it’s misleading; diners pay for quality meat that’s really scraps glued together. But I ask: what are the health consequences? Is it known what long-term consumption of transglutaminase – a blood-clotting substance – has on human beings?
Another reason to eat less meat, buy organic or from a trusted source, and take nothing for granted in terms of food safety. Makes you think twice about what’s really in popular food-chain hamburgers, too. Even kosher and halal meat must be questioned – there is a kosher version of meat glue, Activa TIU.You don’t want to be inhaling powder that makes your blood clot abnormally.
Technically called thrombian, or transglutaminase (TG), it is an enzyme that food processors use to hold different kinds of meat together. Chicken nuggets are also often bound with meat glue, as are meat mixtures meant to mold like sausage but without the casing. Meat glue is also used by high-end chefs.
How it works
TG is an enzyme that catalyzes covalent bonds between free amine groups in a protein, like lysine, and gamma-caroxminid groups, like glutamine. These bonds are pretty durable and resist degradation once the food has been formed.Thrombin is made from pig or cow blood, though you'll see it on labels, if at all, as "composite meat product." Many Europeans are outraged at their governments'for approval of the product: Food Safety News reports that a member of the Swedish Consumers' Association, for example, has stated, "We do not want this at all--it is meat make-up."
The European Parliament has voted to ban bovine and porcine thrombin used as an additive to bind separate pieces of meat together into one piece. The House said the meat glue has no proven benefit for consumers and might mislead them instead.
Europeans – hopefully – aren’t eating Frankenstein meat now. There are no regulations against meat glue outside of Europe, however. The main objection to it is that it’s misleading; diners pay for quality meat that’s really scraps glued together. But I ask: what are the health consequences? Is it known what long-term consumption of transglutaminase – a blood-clotting substance – has on human beings?
0 comments:
Post a Comment