This is one reason why Old Stylers cook meals from scratch and avoid ready meals!

zippychick

Bongedone wrote: »

Reformed meat is completely different. MRM must be lable as such. Not sure about what Subway contains and would like to know. I am positive you would be safe with meatball though.

From http://www.visionfoodhall.com/glossary.html


Reformed Meat
Reformed meat has the appearance of a cut, slice or joint of meat, formed by tumbling chopped meat; also finely comminuted meat and other ingredients may be added to bind the pieces together in a pre-ordained shape. The process must be indicated in the name of the food, unless the fact is obvious (eg burgers).

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Mechanically Recovered Meat (MRM)
MRM comes from the carcass of an animal once the good meat has been removed. MRM is therefore essentially meat residue (flesh, cartilage and sinew) which has been pressure-blasted off the bones by machinery to form a reddish slurry which resembles mince. Some companies then use it to bulk up their meat products. If MRM is used in a product the label must say so.

I have checked Subway and they use reformed meat.
[/FONT]

I will read that once I have had dinner and my b rain has woken up. Thank you genuinely for teaching me something new

info on subway - but no specific ingredients listed

Bongedone

With some of their other sandwiches they mention reformed meat. Burgers are exempt from having to say it as its pretty obvious that it is reformed. I am thinking that meatballs are just mini burgers.

If they used MRM they would have to say.

conradmum

Thanks to all who responded. It's been interesting to read everyone's opinions. I believe in eating the whole animal too, although I've yet to convince the whole family to do the same! When we were on holiday last year we had roast bird a couple of times and the head was served with it. I encouraged my 6 year old to chew on it and he did without batting an eyelid! No one else would though.

But I still find that slop disgusting. My intuitive reaction is that that is no longer meat as it would be if I boiled up a chicken carcass. I frequently do that and it looks nothing like strawberry ice-cream. It concerns me that the high-tech processing of our food alters in it ways that perhaps we don't yet understand.

Also, I like to know what I'm eating. I love the crispy skin on a roast chicken, but do I want it amalgamated with other unknown chicken parts in formless gloop? Personally speaking, no. A while ago I ate some chicken slices in a sandwich and I could distinctly taste chicken skin. Now I can't eat them without feeling sick.

I don't think comparing the industrialised processing of animals to the efficient use of the entire animal in a home kitchen is entirely accurate. Sometimes when I hear people talking about how great MacDonald's burgers are I ask them if they're aware that the reason they have to be heated to a set temperature is to ensure that the bacteria from manure are killed. It's true, too! When it was found that people were getting food poisoning from E.Coli in the burgers, the response wasn't to stop the cow sh*t getting in there in the first place, but to heat them enough to kill the bacteria in it.

seraphina

conradmum wrote: »

I don't think comparing the industrialised processing of animals to the efficient use of the entire animal in a home kitchen is entirely accurate. Sometimes when I hear people talking about how great MacDonald's burgers are I ask them if they're aware that the reason they have to be heated to a set temperature is to ensure that the bacteria from manure are killed. It's true, too! When it was found that people were getting food poisoning from E.Coli in the burgers, the response wasn't to stop the cow sh*t getting in there in the first place, but to heat them enough to kill the bacteria in it.

Cooking meat to the appropriate temperature is not just limited to Macdonald's - I would like to think that every food serving establishment does this. It's fine if you have well trained chefs who can identify when meat is raw or unsafe, but given most of Macdonald's staff have little, if any, formal food training outside of that provided by their employers, it's far more effective to teach them to use a food temperature probe to check whether meat is at a cooked temperature or not.

Non-organic beef animals in the UK (incidently, all McD's beef is from the UK) are routinely administered with antibiotics. The only way in which meat can become contaminated with "E. coli" is through inapprorpriate handling after slaughter; animals with infection at the time of slaughter are not fit for human consumption.

Given that the UK has some of the highest standards of food hygiene (both in slaugherhouses and in the catering industry) in the world, I very much doubt that the amount of bacterial contamination present in McD's meat is different to that in most food establishments in the UK, if not higher given that they have such a lot to lose from loss of their reputation, should a major food poisoning outbreak occur. Indeed, one of the more high profile food poisoning outbreaks of recent times was at Heston Blumethal's place...

Anyway, I'm all for happy meat, slaughtered with compassion and minimal waste, but when I see the absolute rubbish spouted by some people with regards to industrial food preparation methods just because they've read "Not on the Label" or some such, I really despair.

Edited to add: I guess my point is, large scale food production is here to stay. We need to adapt it to what we think is ethical and sustainable, rather than throwing up our hands in horror and feeling smug that we would never dream of doing that/ eating this.

Ladyhawk

Yes - i completely agree with most people that in theory there is nothing wrong with using as much as the animal as we can. My concern is that a lots of the constiting parts of MRM is not actually muscle, it is sinew, and cartiledge which does not have nutritional value. It has to be adulterated to such an extent with additives, such as colourants and flavour enhancers that it is just so that people would consider eating it!

conradmum

seraphina wrote: »

Cooking meat to the appropriate temperature is not just limited to Macdonald's - I would like to think that every food serving establishment does this. It's fine if you have well trained chefs who can identify when meat is raw or unsafe, but given most of Macdonald's staff have little, if any, formal food training outside of that provided by their employers, it's far more effective to teach them to use a food temperature probe to check whether meat is at a cooked temperature or not.

Non-organic beef animals in the UK (incidently, all McD's beef is from the UK) are routinely administered with antibiotics. The only way in which meat can become contaminated with "E. coli" is through inapprorpriate handling after slaughter; animals with infection at the time of slaughter are not fit for human consumption.

Given that the UK has some of the highest standards of food hygiene (both in slaugherhouses and in the catering industry) in the world, I very much doubt that the amount of bacterial contamination present in McD's meat is different to that in most food establishments in the UK, if not higher given that they have such a lot to lose from loss of their reputation, should a major food poisoning outbreak occur. Indeed, one of the more high profile food poisoning outbreaks of recent times was at Heston Blumethal's place...

Anyway, I'm all for happy meat, slaughtered with compassion and minimal waste, but when I see the absolute rubbish spouted by some people with regards to industrial food preparation methods just because they've read "Not on the Label" or some such, I really despair.

Edited to add: I guess my point is, large scale food production is here to stay. We need to adapt it to what we think is ethical and sustainable, rather than throwing up our hands in horror and feeling smug that we would never dream of doing that/ eating this.

I went away and tried to find out more about this fact that I'd read or heard somewhere and found that the incident I'd been thinking of was the Jack in the Box food poisoning outbreak in 1993 in the US where hundreds were taken ill and four died. It was E. Coli poisoning from undercooked meat and a raft of legislation was brought in in reaction to it. The central fact remains the same: the reason burgers or any other processed meat, whether it's McDonalds or Hester Blumenthal's, has to be cooked to 160 C is to kill any bacterial contamination from manure. Not rubbish at all.

I agree with you that large scale food production is here to stay. However my guess is that the production of the slop in the picture has far more to do with corporate profit than an altruistic desire to feed the world. It was large scale food production that gave us BSE don't forget, so imo to just accept whatever is done to carcasses as simply efficient use of all the animal, and to dismiss an aversion to it as 'smug' is unfair.

seraphina

conradmum wrote: »

I went away and tried to find out more about this fact that I'd read or heard somewhere and found that the incident I'd been thinking of was the Jack in the Box food poisoning outbreak in 1993 in the US where hundreds were taken ill and four died. It was E. Coli poisoning from undercooked meat and a raft of legislation was brought in in reaction to it. The central fact remains the same: the reason burgers or any other processed meat, whether it's McDonalds or Hester Blumenthal's, has to be cooked to 160 C is to kill any bacterial contamination from manure. Not rubbish at all.

I agree with you that large scale food production is here to stay. However my guess is that the production of the slop in the picture has far more to do with corporate profit than an altruistic desire to feed the world. It was large scale food production that gave us BSE don't forget, so imo to just accept whatever is done to carcasses as simply efficient use of all the animal, and to dismiss an aversion to it as 'smug' is unfair.

Your original post implied that E. coli was limited to McD's meat, or other cheap meat.

Large scale food production did not give us BSE - feeding other animals to cows did. It is possible - and necessary - to do large scale food production in a manner that's better for everyone - and I think that's where OS and good education of people plays a role. No-one is claiming that all industrial food processes are dismissed without a second thought, or that there is no room for change.

I think th ebest example of this is pig farming in the UK - despite the increased cost, farrowing crates are now banned in the UK, resulting in happier pigs and enough consumers are happy to bear the cost. My point is, unless the consumer is happier to bear any associated cost of less odious industrial food, then nothing is going to change. Education is the only way of getting the message across.

freakyogre

It looks like a big pink marshmallow

conradmum

seraphina wrote: »

Your original post implied that E. coli was limited to McD's meat, or other cheap meat.

Large scale food production did not give us BSE - feeding other animals to cows did. It is possible - and necessary - to do large scale food production in a manner that's better for everyone - and I think that's where OS and good education of people plays a role. No-one is claiming that all industrial food processes are dismissed without a second thought, or that there is no room for change.

I think th ebest example of this is pig farming in the UK - despite the increased cost, farrowing crates are now banned in the UK, resulting in happier pigs and enough consumers are happy to bear the cost. My point is, unless the consumer is happier to bear any associated cost of less odious industrial food, then nothing is going to change. Education is the only way of getting the message across.

Yes, my original post did imply just McDonald's but I didn't actually mean just them, I was singling them out as an example of a junk food that some people love, not knowing anything at all about the processes that bring it to them.

I would argue that large scale food production did indeed bring us BSE. Feeding cows to other cows was for the sake of efficiency and profit and could only happen in a large scale system, and the processing that mixed the central nervous system with the meat was an industrial process. I may be wrong but I doubt that an ordinary butcher would mix brain or spinal column in with meat that he was mincing. I think the fact that BSE came about only 20 years ago when we've been eating beef for hundreds of years would indicate this too.

We agree that educating people about food production is the key. :beer: I do think, though, that we're too easily sold on the idea of cheap food. Another thing I read somewhere was that the percentage of income spent on food has fallen dramatically over the last 60/70 years. I think it's certainly sometimes the case that food has a lower priority than other, less important, items in household budgets.

Ladyhawk

conradmum wrote: »

The central fact remains the same: the reason burgers or any other processed meat, whether it's McDonalds or Hester Blumenthal's, has to be cooked to 160 C is to kill any bacterial contamination from manure. Not rubbish at all.

Actually - that is not a fact. Food does not need to be cooked to 160C - only above 63C.

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/tempcontrolguiduk.pdf