'Meat glue' is safe and natural, American Meat Institute says

Los Angeles Times / LATimes.com ^ | May 10, 2012, 2:05 p.m. | By Tiffany Hsu

[thecodont]

The American Meat Institute is striking back at reports that “meat glue,” a binding agent often used to patch together pieces of beef and other protein, is unsafe and unnatural.

In an occasionally touchy conference call Thursday, the trade group said that the USDA considers such substances to be safe and requires its presence to be noted on retail labels. The product, however, isn’t always disclosed when it’s served at restaurants and other food service outlets, experts said.

But using the binding substance to weave together high-quality cuts such as filet mignon with lower-priced meat such as chuck steak is “patently illegal,” said Mark D. Dopp, the institute’s general counsel.

Such "Frankenstein" meat would be easily discernible to diners and not condoned by the industry, he said.

Not long after the “pink slime” outcry and the reemergence of mad cow disease, concerns about meat glue have the industry back on defense.

California state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) recently called on the USDA to investigate such products, including options made by Fibrimex and Ajinomoto North America.

Ajinomoto uses transglutaminate, a “ubiquitous enzyme found in nature, basically every animal, in our tissues, in plants, trees and vegetables,” the company's Senior Vice President Brendan Naulty said on the conference call. Besides its meat applications, it is also used in products such as bread, yogurt and imitation crab.

Fibrimex uses fibrinogen and thrombin proteins, which company representative Christiaan Penning said was “designed by nature … but used in a more intelligent way.”

[HiTech RedNeck]

Out of three handy cookie packages I picked up and looked at, one has zero trans fat, one does not say (probably also has none, because of modern listing requirements), and one (dollar store cheap) shows trans fat at a tiny fraction of the total. A far cry from the Crisco cookies of old.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I think there is a confusion here between “minimally processed” and “organic.”

Nothing but free-range meat glue for me. ;-)

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Deep in the article was a line taken from an email sent by a disgruntled USDA fellow in 2002, and obtained through a simple FOIA request, that referred to the stuff as “pink slime.”

So, the USDA has its own James Hansen, it appears.

[Delta 21]

I used to get in so much trouble for eating this stuff. Now its all the rage.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ultimately it’s no worse than a more glamorously molded form of Spam. Any chef who can produce a convincing faux steak has an art form in its own right.