Meat Glue (Transglutaminase): The Meat Industry’s ? Secret
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Meat Glue (Transglutaminase): The Meat Industry’s ? Secret
http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/03/meat-glue-frankenstein-mea/
18 month Shelf Life, Keep in Freezer to ensure product strength
Posted on March 22, 2011 by Miriam Kresh in Food & Health with 48 Comments
Care for a slab of Frankenstein steak? Just glue meat scraps together with transglutaminase and serve ‘em up, hot. Side of blood clots, optional.
The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s ? 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. See also our posts on Israel’s frozen fish scandal and how garlic from China is scary stuff.
Restaurants and butchers can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too. Best of all, you don’t have to tell the customer. Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.
What is transglutaminase?
“Meat glue” is transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form, derived from beef and pork blood plasma. See the Wikipedia description of it here. Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein. Using enzymes in food isn’t a new technique. Papaya seed is the main ingredient in meat tenderizers, for example. Rennet and yeasts produce enzymes that make cheese and alcohol, too. Natural enzymes. Meat glue is a darker product altogether.
Yet according to Cooking Issues, the French Culinary Institute’s blog (USA), meat glue is safe. That is, the major study carried out to gain acceptance by the FDA says so. And why shouldn’t we believe? It was funded by Ajinomoto, the product’s manufacturer, after all.
A scientist we interviewed about meat glue could only speak *on anonymity* about the hazards.
This video from Australia’s TodayTonight TV show demonstrates how easily you can create Frankenstein meat. 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.
Only make sure to wear your face mask while performing the simple operation: you don’t want to be inhaling powder that makes your blood clot abnormally.
Do you want to be eating it either?
Banned by the European Parliament in May 2010, meat glue is freely available through sources like Amazon.com. The information from the French Culinary Institute states that 1 kg. will hold over 100 kg. of meat parts together. This is the product description of meat glue exactly as it appears on Amazon.com:
Food Enzyme used to provide ways to improve texture, yield, sliceability.
Used to “glue” protiens (sic) together; mix Swordfish with Salmon to create a Seafood Filet
Used to “glue” protiens together; mix Elk, Llama and Yak to create a Exotic Mixed Grill Filet
Product of France
In the TodayTonight video, microbiologist Glenn Pener voices concern over meat glue and food poisoning.
“The amount of bacteria on a steak that’s been put together with meat glue is hundreds of time higher,” he says.
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.
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? Especially if you like your meat rare.
Just gimme my meat with the bone in, please. Hold the side of thrombosis.
More on on food and the consumer:
The Meat You Eat May Not Be What You Think
Grow Fish Anywhere
Meat Glue: It’s Everywhere
Meat Glue: Why Isn’t Anyone Talking About It?
Miriam Kresh also writes a food blog.
http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/03/meat-glue-frankenstein-mea/
18 month Shelf Life, Keep in Freezer to ensure product strength
Posted on March 22, 2011 by Miriam Kresh in Food & Health with 48 Comments
Care for a slab of Frankenstein steak? Just glue meat scraps together with transglutaminase and serve ‘em up, hot. Side of blood clots, optional.
The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s ? 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. See also our posts on Israel’s frozen fish scandal and how garlic from China is scary stuff.
Restaurants and butchers can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too. Best of all, you don’t have to tell the customer. Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.
What is transglutaminase?
“Meat glue” is transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form, derived from beef and pork blood plasma. See the Wikipedia description of it here. Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein. Using enzymes in food isn’t a new technique. Papaya seed is the main ingredient in meat tenderizers, for example. Rennet and yeasts produce enzymes that make cheese and alcohol, too. Natural enzymes. Meat glue is a darker product altogether.
Yet according to Cooking Issues, the French Culinary Institute’s blog (USA), meat glue is safe. That is, the major study carried out to gain acceptance by the FDA says so. And why shouldn’t we believe? It was funded by Ajinomoto, the product’s manufacturer, after all.
A scientist we interviewed about meat glue could only speak *on anonymity* about the hazards.
This video from Australia’s TodayTonight TV show demonstrates how easily you can create Frankenstein meat. 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.
Only make sure to wear your face mask while performing the simple operation: you don’t want to be inhaling powder that makes your blood clot abnormally.
Do you want to be eating it either?
Banned by the European Parliament in May 2010, meat glue is freely available through sources like Amazon.com. The information from the French Culinary Institute states that 1 kg. will hold over 100 kg. of meat parts together. This is the product description of meat glue exactly as it appears on Amazon.com:
Food Enzyme used to provide ways to improve texture, yield, sliceability.
Used to “glue” protiens (sic) together; mix Swordfish with Salmon to create a Seafood Filet
Used to “glue” protiens together; mix Elk, Llama and Yak to create a Exotic Mixed Grill Filet
Product of France
In the TodayTonight video, microbiologist Glenn Pener voices concern over meat glue and food poisoning.
“The amount of bacteria on a steak that’s been put together with meat glue is hundreds of time higher,” he says.
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.
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? Especially if you like your meat rare.
Just gimme my meat with the bone in, please. Hold the side of thrombosis.
More on on food and the consumer:
The Meat You Eat May Not Be What You Think
Grow Fish Anywhere
Meat Glue: It’s Everywhere
Meat Glue: Why Isn’t Anyone Talking About It?
Miriam Kresh also writes a food blog.
Comments
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On Monday, KGO-TV, the San Francisco affiliate of ABC, aired a report on transglutaminase, more commonly known as "meat glue." The clip, embedded below, features chef Staffan Terje of Perbacco Restaurant in San Francisco demonstrating how the powder works. It's basically what it sounds like -- meat glue allows proteins to fuse together to form one connected piece of meat. It's a process that has been known about for some time, but this ABC piece focuses on the consumer health risks. The report explains:
The outside of a piece of meat comes in contact with a lot of bacteria making its way from slaughterhouse to table. Usually cooking a steak on the outside will ? all that off. The center of a single cut of steak is sterile, that's why you can eat it rare. But glued pieces of meat could contain bacteria like E. coli on the inside.
Transglutaminase is USDA-approved. According to ABC, meat containing transglutaminase is found throughout places that serve meat in bulk, such as banquet dining or high-volume restaurants.
Various blogs have picked up the report, with Gizmodo raising similarities between meat glue and pink slime. While transparency is certainly a concern -- if a person is eating a piece of meat that is actually made up of several smaller pieces of meat, he has a right to know that-- the ABC report reinforces certain myths about meat glue that several chefs have been trying to dispel for years.
Last year, when a different report on meat glue was aired, chef and culinary science expert Dave Arnold offered a well-researched defense of meat glue. He agrees that any restaurant that uses meat glue to cheat its customers should be shut down, but he has "never seen or heard of such a case." (The ABC report doesn't offer specific examples).
Arnold does acknowledge the risk of bacteria contamination, though. He advises several safety precautions, and believes that chefs need to be trained in how to use meat glue.
What the ABC report does not address is the use of meat glue in a way to elevate a certain dish. Chef Wylie Dufresne of New York's wd-50 told the food magazine Meatpaper that "Meat glue makes us better chefs." He's experimented with meat glue in his restaurant by fusing bacon to cod medallions and famed British chef Heston Blumenthal has used it in an innovative mackerel dish. Dufresne told Meatpaper, “People have been manipulating food ever since they realized cooking a whole animal was difficult. Cows don’t come in hot dog form.” Arnold, likewise, believes that meat glue helps chefs cook meat more evenly and consistently. "I'm trying to make it better for the diner," he writes.
Where the disconnect seems to occur between various media reports focusing on the dangers of meat glue and chefs that openly use and praise meat glue is when meat glue is used to mask the identity of the product. Arnold, Dufresne and other prominent chefs have never advocated the use of meat glue to deceive customers, or to use it on cheaper cuts of meat to make a product look better. Rather, these chefs use transglutaminase to stretch culinary boundaries.
So is the use of meat glue scandalous? If a company is cutting corners and using cheaper cuts to make the product look like something else, then yes. But it remains to be seen just how widespread this practice is. (The USDA mandates that transglutaminase must appear on ingredient labels in addition to terms like "formed" or "reformed meat.") But, if a chef is trained on how to use the substance, and uses it in a purposeful way, there isn't a need for meat glue to become the next pink slime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1470798 -
Mmmmmmmm.
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Man.....
This ? got me ? up........
I eat certain meats, but am thinking on cutting down.......
However.....
These ? going after vegetables & fruits as well........
There are ways to detox from pollutants.......
But, I have no idea of what this ? can do at the biological level (long-term)...........
I'm bout to just start ripping ? faces off & eating them ? , yo........
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Don't care; Still eating
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I think that local farmers markets might help. Or shopping the outer perimeter of the grocery store. Every little change helps.
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Man.....
This ? got me ? up........
I eat certain meats, but am thinking on cutting down.......
However.....
These ? going after vegetables & fruits as well........
There are ways to detox from pollutants.......
But, I have no idea of what this ? can do at the biological level (long-term)...........
I'm bout to just start ripping ? faces off & eating them ? , yo........
that's what they want you to do
http://youtu.be/ydzIlKJmwV4
