This white powder sold by the kilo, is the meat industry's dirty little secret. It's called "meat glue." It makes pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or fish that would normally be thrown out stick together so closely that it looks like a solid piece of meat.
Restaurants and butchers can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too. Best of all, you don’t have to tell the customer. Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.
“Meat glue” is transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form, derived from beef and pork blood plasma. See the Wikipedia description of it here. Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein. Using enzymes in food isn’t a new technique. Papaya seed is the main ingredient in meat tenderizers, for example. Rennet and yeasts produce enzymes that make cheese and alcohol, too. Natural enzymes. Meat glue is a darker product altogether.
This video has cast yet another negative shadow over an already distrusted, unappetizing industry. This product can apparently can be adapted for use with any type of meat, not just beef. In a world of bio-engineered food, is it really necessary for these companies to do this to our meat, our sustenance, and call it prime cuts, all the while lying to us.
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