If you liked 'pink slime,' then you'll love 'meat glue'

[Newsjock]

Source: KGO-TV

If you were disturbed to hear about pink slime in your hamburger, then you'll want to know about this. The ABC7 News I-Team has uncovered another meat industry practice that will have you looking twice at the steak that you eat.

It has a long scientific name, but it's known as "meat glue." It binds bits and pieces of meat together into what looks like a prime cut. But while pink slime may be unappetizing, glued meat that's not handled properly could make you sick.

... Meat glue is a powder officially known as transglutaminase. Originally, the natural enzyme was harvested from animal blood. Now it's primarily produced through the fermentation of bacteria. Added to meat, it forms a nearly invisible and permanent bond to any other meat you stick it to.

... The FDA lists transglutaminase as "generally recognized as safe." It's OK to eat cooked meat that's been glued. But here's the problem, 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 kill all that off. The center of a single cut of steak is sterile, that's why you can eat it rare. But glue pieces of meat together and now bacteria like E. coli could be on the inside.

Read more: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=8638238

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. Just don't think about it.

[pipoman]

2. I'd have to see it to believe it..

Our humble $4 a pound stew meat now looks like a $25 a pound prime filet.

An industry trade group told us meat glue is most often used where filet mignon is served in bulk -- at a restaurant, banquet, cafeteria or hotel.

"You ask yourself, how can they make money? Selling these cheap steaks all day long, and that look really nice, and this is one way of doing it," says Terje.

I'm a guy who has cut and trimmed a virtual ass load of PSMO tenderloins, I'm not buying it could fool anyone who knows anything about meat. I use 3 of the biggest food service distributors and have never seen anything like this. I have purchased and served "no roll" or commercial grade PSMO tenderloins, they can be bought in the $6 to $9 per pound range making them very affordable for banquets. They are just heifer tenderloins or sometimes mis cuts, but there is no question that they are actual tenderloins, and they taste good, I eat them at home. As for gluing scraps, the supplier I buy most of my meat from sells bags of tenderloin scraps as tenderloin tails and heads...they apparently aren't gluing them together. I am sure there may be some unscrupulous butchers and restauranteurs doing shady shit like this, I just don't believe it is wide spread in the respectable restaurant community.

[Speck Tater]

3. ¿Like it? I kept hoping I could buy it in a squeeze tube

for making pink slime sandwiches with pickle relish. Yummm!

[Liberty Belle]

4. What parts of meat? Parts with mad cow, perhaps?

If those bits come from areas near the spinal cord or brain, it's a health hazard on another level.

I think vegetarianism is sounding better and better....or at least organic beef, if I buy it at all.

[chknltl]

5. Pink Slime and the Meat Glues.....

Sounds like a a good name for a garage band to me...i'm thinkin punk-rock with a female singer, maybe fuse a little country/western into their sound.

[G_j]

6. disgusting beyond the pale... nt

[lilithsrevenge12]

7. Another Fun Nutrition Fact!

There is anti-freeze in your cake mix!

I've spent the past few years watching documentaries about the food industry and reading every ingredient on labels. I've had to force myself to stop reading the label so i don't die from malnutrition...

http://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/03/14/6-scary-things-hiding-your-food

[newfie11]

8. keep it up and we will all be vegetarians nt

[alphafemale]

9. I usually wait to buy steak until I can get a deal on a thing like whole ribeye.

And have the butcher cut it.

[lonestarnot]

10. We hopefully do not eat the cancer causing ingredient in Tide, but many wear it.

They are refusing to take it out.

[sir pball]

11. I use meat glue/TG/Activa(TM) on a daily basis..

..in a very good NYC restaurant. It's getting to be a fairly common ingredient even outside of molecular/modernist cuisine.

There's absolutely no way you could bind together trim into something that would mimic a whole-muscle cut. The glued surfaces are noticeable, it's hardly a magic seamless transition - there's a tiny "snap" to it, sort of like a sausage casing but less so. Not to mention the grain of all the bits would be going in different directions and the tenderness would wildly vary. If a pile of trim were tossed with some activa and formed, it wouldn't resemble a steak any more than a hamburger would.

Shenanigans!

[AsahinaKimi]

12. I am so glad I can not

eat Beef, Pork or Lamb. Maybe being allergic to it has been a blessing.

[flvegan]

13. I prefer to get my meat glue on the side.

That way I can have a creative meal. You should have seen my Eiffel Tower of Tenderloin.

"Glued meat" sounds delightful, doesn't it?

[customerserviceguy]

14. Hmm, does meat glue actually stick to pink slime?

It sounds like one of those discussions in my college philosophy class about irresistible forces and immovable objects.