What's in your food? Meat Glue-it's as disturbing as you think

Melissa Jensen
4706 days ago.

It is pretty much exactly what is sounds like and it is apparently commonly used in the United States.  Basically they take scraps of meat and apply meat glue.  It fuses the pieces of meat together so that they appear to look like a prime cut of meat.  It can also be used to fuse two types of meat together, such as bacon wrapped fillets, without the aid of toothpicks.

The most common “meat glue” is Thrombian and is an enzyme found in cow or pigs blood.  From what I have researched it aids in coagulation.  When I first heard about this my stomach turned, but then I was helpfully reminded that it’s really not any grosser than eating muscles (any meat).

So now, being a non-vegetarian, I’m not certain how I feel about this.  The idea of it is totally disgusting to me.  It seems the raised amount of surface area might increase the bacterial content of the meat?  How can I be sure that roast or tenderloin I just found at a great price is really a good cut of meat or is it a bunch of different cow and pig scraps fused together? Is using a blood product to bind meat together really any grosser than the meat itself?

I think my big point in the whole thing, aside from bringing me one step closer to an all organic vegan diet, is that people have a right to know what they are eating.  I think many people wouldn’t mind saving a buck on these frankenroasts, but to present them as a high grade cut of meat without even listing the binding agent on the packaging seems wrong.

Brought to you by: Mills Properties
Photo Courtesy of:  treehugger.com

Melissa Jensen

Melissa is a native of the Greater St. Louis region. She is addicted to anything Google, and cannot understand why motion activated paper towel dispensers never see her hands.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterFacebookYouTube