All right, so the butcher’s all done making certain cuts for his shop or for the grocery store’s order, but he has all these scraps left over. Pieces that would be way too small to sell to anyone, basically just lying around collecting dust. Seems unfit for perfectly good meat to meet (ha!) that fate, right?
No worries! If you need to stick a whole bunch of pieces together so you can slice ‘em and sell ‘em, you can always use… meat glue!
… okay, so I wish this was the intro to a satirical article about food waste, but in fact, it’s quite the opposite. “Meat glue,” as it’s typically called, is actually a substance called transglutaminase, which is used in the US, Canada, Australia, and other parts of the world to bind otherwise discarded meat parts into something that you can slice, dice, and throw on the grill.
Transglutaminases are a family of enzymes that catalyze the formation of a covalent bond between a protein- or peptide-bound lysine and a protein- or peptide-bound glutamine. In laymen terms, it’s the enzyme used in bodily processes like blood coagulation (clots) and the production of our skin cells and hair. Our bodies obviously naturally produce it, and deficiencies can cause heightened bleeding risks while elevated levels (especially of those transglutamines that cause tissue production) may cause conditions such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s.
These binding agents, which can be and are made of the blood platelets of cows and/or pigs, are currently used in the following products (yes, even “vegetarian” ones) in order to:
- Improve texture of emulsified meat products, such as sausages and hot dogs;
- Bind different meat parts into a larger ones (“portion control”), such as in restructured steaks;
- Improve the texture of low-grade meat such as so-called “PSE meat” (pale, soft, and exudative meat, whose characteristics are attributed to stress and a rapid postmortem pH decline);
- Make milk and yogurt creamier; and
- Make noodles firmer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually all for saving resources and squeezing all possible use out of products (like that toothpaste I had in a chokehold last week just to get the very… last… bit…), but this is going too far. Not only is it just plain weird, but it’s being used without any sort of labeling, with no indication, and worst of all, we don’t even know its effects in humans on a long-term basis.
Short-term effects, if you’re interested, include heightened risk of oxidation and food poisoning, which are increased based on the level of “done-ness.” Basically, the more rare the steak, the higher the chances that it’ll be laden with bacteria and other nasty stuff.
So why is this stuff allowed? And more importantly, why is there no labeling requirement? Really, it comes down to the industries: They justify the use of these “meat glues” because they are only used during processing and is not a part of the formulation of the product, which means it is technically not an “ingredient.” This avoids the need for labeling or any other sort of declaration of information to the average consumer, as the products used in processing stay with the final product.
Further, the FDA has rated transglutamine as “GRAS,” or “generally recognized as safe,” which is deceiving in itself when there are so many diseases spread by the bacterium in meat and its byproducts… and now, its binding methods.
Even scarier? Butchers and other meat experts can’t tell the difference!
Know where your meat is coming from, people! If you’re going to eat it, at least be informed as to its history and, at the very least, shop at farmer’s markets and local butcheries where you can watch the meat preparation process from start to finish. Of course, I can use this as a practical tool to reconsider eating meat at all (after all, do you know what you’re really eating?), but if you’re going to do it, don’t eat out of ignorance.
Stephanie Fox
Gross. That’s all I have to say about that.
LOL, right?! I was shocked when I heard.
Honestly, this doesn’t happen in North America or Europe. Australian laws are much more lax for that stuff – it’s an Australian video. There are laws against this stuff here, and honestly it upsets me because this video is making the rounds online because so many people think that it does happen here. It doesn’t, I can’t stress it enough. My husband is a butcher and a meat cutter. He had never even heard of this stuff until I showed him the video some months ago, and he could tell the difference between the types of meat. Seriously.
Sorry, this is one of my things, I’ll stop there!
I did some additional research and came up with examples from Ajinomoto (the company that produces this stuff) and the FDA on its use and safety.
What I came up with is that, yes, it’s approved in the US, as well as Canada, Brazil, Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. There are a couple countries in the EU that have banned its use (France and Denmark), but currently, the rest of the EU has approved its use as well.
Despite all this, I’m glad your husband doesn’t use it! We need honest butchers/meat cutters from whom we can buy dependable, honest, and healthy meat.
Oh! And I’m curious… I don’t eat meat and never prepare it, so I wouldn’t know, but: How can you tell the difference?
Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog and sorry for not coming by sooner. I didn’t notice your comment!
I’m sad stuff like this happens ANYWHERE – USA, Australia, Europe, China, wherever. People should have a right to healthier food, and to being able to openly afford to eat things that aren’t laced with who-knows-what.
Thanks for sharing this.
Haha, no worries! Thanks for stopping by TCC!
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog!
I am, too. It simply boils down to people needing the education and resources to eat better, and that’s hard with huge companies that own a good percentage of our food (while also keeping what I believe is vital information from us). Very welcome, I hope it helps others!
Gross!
All I can say is; if I ate meat, this would put me off!
And, luckily for me, the vegetarian items mentioned that it “might” get used in are things I don’t tend to have that much… I can’t have creamy yogurts, because I have issues with lactos, and I don’t really like noodles that much (I’m more of a potato person than a pasta/noodles person). Also, when I buy something that isn’t straight forward things (by which I mean, things that aren’t just fruit and veg in their natural state) I tend to check for the logo that shows the products have been approved by The Vegetarian Society where possible, which means they would have done the investigation of how it’s made from start to finish for me, and I don’t have the risk of any hiddenn ingredients like this.
That’s some wonderful advice there, Tori, thank you!
I admit that I’ll eat pasta and (very rarely) yogurt, but I never knew these enzymes possibly existed in these products. I’m going to be a LOT more particular about the prepared foods I get as you just never know…!
I told Matt this story yesterday, by the way, just before I posted… and he was like, “Eh, yeah, whatever.” Don’t you even care!! LOL
Yeah; I bet mine thinks the same. LOL!
I’m almost of a mind to suggest it’s a male thing.