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Otherwords / Op-Ed
Published: Monday 11 June 2012
Transglutaminase is an enzyme made by the fermentation of bacteria and added to meat pieces to make them stick together. Yes, “meat glue.” It’s what’s for dinner.
These Steaks May Stick to Your Ribs
If you're one who enjoys a steak dinner now and again, let me ask this question: do you prefer it with a nice sauce, a side of garlicky spinach — or maybe some transglutaminase?
Trans-what-did-he-say?
Transglutaminase is an enzyme made by the fermentation of bacteria and added to meat pieces to make them stick together. Yes, "meat glue." It's what's for dinner.
This is yet another dandy product from industrialized food purveyors that keep inventing new ways to mess with our dinner for their own fun and profit. Right about now, you're probably asking yourself: "Why do they need to glue meat together?"
Glad you asked. It's so the industry can take cheap chunks of beef and form them into what appears to be a pricey steak. For example, remember that filet mignon you ordered at the Slaphappy Steakhouse chain recently? By liberally dusting meat pieces with transglutaminase powder, squishing them into filet mignon-shaped molds, adding a bit of pressure to bond the pieces, and chilling them — voila, four-bucks-a-pound stew meat looks like a $25-a-pound filet mignon!
While meat glue is widely used, corporations peddling molded meat aren't eager to let us consumers in on their little secret. Well, sniffs the meat industry's lobbying group, they have to list transglutaminase on the ingredient label and stamp the package as "formed" or "reformed" meat. How honest! Except that most of these glued steaks are peddled as filet mignon through high-volume restaurants, hotels, cafeterias, and banquet halls — where unwitting customers never see the package or ingredient label.
This is why we should support truth-in-menu laws. Make them say "reformed and glued" filet mignon right on the menu. That simple step lets us decide if we really want to eat that cut of meat. Consumers should have the right to know — and choose.
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ABOUT Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
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By Richard (RJ) Eskow
6 comments on "These Steaks May Stick to Your Ribs"
June 11, 2012 8:40pm
If our politicians weren't also making money hand over fist by deregulating everything for their corporate owners, we might have a chance. As it is any watchdog group gets defunded or shut down thanks to the very people we elect to do what is best for us. We are being stabbed in the back and lied to by these very politicians that keep us occupied with nonsense while they sell us out. All the while they line their pockets at our expense. Will it change?
June 11, 2012 3:08pm
Sleeping at night? They don't. They are busy making money hand over fist. Let me narrate my own experience in another food product. I bought Dole's fruit juice combo "Orange, peach, mango" listed as 100% juice. The ingredients listed on the package (truthfully, of course!) in the order of preponderance are : WATER, Apple juice concentrate, Orange juice concentrate, pineacpple juice concentrate, peach puree, grape juice concentrate, mango puree, citric acid, flavors.
What are apple juice, pinapple juice, and grape juice doing in a product called "Orange, peach, mango"? Go figure!
June 11, 2012 12:36pm
Pink slime, GMO, glued steaks...UMMMMMUMMMM.... What else is the multinational food companies are going to feed us in the name of food? Anyone care about the health of this country? What are the Food and Drug, Health and Human Services, and other regulatory agencies paid for? Seems to me the government that is supposed to watch for chickens is colluding with foxes while being fed by the chickens.... Where is my representative in this process? I pay him but he/she is asleep at the wheel.
June 18, 2012 6:38pm
.... Where is my representative in this process?....
A fair question Norm. Answer?...... You don't have a representative in this process. You weren't there for the auction when they put their loyalty on the block apparently.
As for the regulatory apparatus...... It is what happens when you leave people who hate the very concept of self governance in control. Specifically... conservatives. More specifically.... tea baggers. Let's be straight. No side of the left-right argument is actually suggesting that there should be NO government. (After all, conservatives still need some mechanism to fuel the military/industrial complex and even Democrats need some mechanism to pad there personal fortunes). It's really just a philosophical discussion about priorities and the true role of government in the lives of it's citizens. In the meantime, these fully "employed" and pensioned up (and government underwritten health cared up) have philosophical discussions about why no one should do anything.
June 11, 2012 12:32pm
Indeed, how do they sleep LadyPenelope; like babies as they worship greed and care little for anyone elses wellbeing. The better question is to ask why consumers accept such practices? Some do not have the financial means to seek out anything but the lowest prices, others wish to remain blissful in their ignorance, and yet others worship greed too and just don't care what they are eating as long as it is not costing them more.
My grandmother told me about how in her childhood, her mother used to put sawdust in the bread and meat loaves (and I use the term meat loosely) to make them go farther. This was during the siege of Leningrad and there was not enough food to go around. She had many other "tricks" learned during the seige to stretch food, not a pretty conversation. Retailers have been using tricks for all of time. We must learn to detect these tricks.
It is time to buy your food directly from the source or at least as close to is as possible. After the food leaves the farm, a 30% or so profit is added to the price every time the food product changes hands. It is also time to re-evaluate the rush to market notion that is so common place in the food industry. Everything in Moderation and all in its own time. Buy local, refuse to buy imported foods. And refuse to buy food that is not clearly labelled for place of origin and contents.
June 11, 2012 10:41am
This is what happens to REAL food, when corporate agribusiness farmers are added to large corporations that process the food product that has been grown. That corporation wants to take the most profit for themselves, rather than following growing and processing practices that are safe for their family and friends to eat!!! Disgusting! How do these people sleep at night? Perhaps if some truth in advertising laws were upheld, large corporations would not be so FREE with their TRICKS!!