(Image Source: Gawker )

 

BY MATTHEW PICHT

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

 

Some angry consumers are outraged at what they’ve been told is going into their food.  It started with ‘pink slime’, the unflattering moniker for an ammonia-treated meat filler which wound up shutting down three meat processing plants and a loss of more than 600 jobs.

 

“Stung by consumer reaction to the process used by BPI, grocery stores pulled it off the shelves.  and its makers Beef Products Inc. closed three of its four plants for lack of demand.”

 

Sarah Klein, a lawyer for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says that the pink slime scare was based on revulsion rather than risk.

 

"In pink slime, we are looking at a product that is unsavory, but not unsafe -- we don't have any evidence to suggest the ammonia treatment is dangerous...The public outcry over this has illustrated a couple things: consumers want to know what's in their food, and the USDA needs to take a much closer look at labeling."

 

Now, another questionable food additive threatens to cause similar uproar. It’s called “meat glue” -- a product composed of an enzyme which shapes spare pieces of scrap meat into more appetizing cuts. 

 

“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.”

 

Fearing a repeat of the pink slime scare, the meat industry has taken steps to contain reaction. Some companies have distanced themselves from the product, while the American Meat Institute has publicly defended the use of transglutaminase in food preparation. 

 

“...the depiction of "meat glue" by consumer activists is unfair...Transglutaminase has been sold for almost two decades and inaccurately has been nicknamed meat glue for ‘shock appeal...”

 

So far, the FDA, recognizes transglutaminase as safe for consumption, noting the risk lies in partially-cooked steak pieces which may still be carrying pathogens.