Monday, February 22, 2010

McMonia

Year ago, the FDA decided that it was okay to add "meat filler" to ground beef. Problem is, the filler, made from various parts of cow, was often infected with salmonella and other bacteria. A brilliant scientist (or team of them) came up with a way to "sanitize" this filler. Ammonia. Yep, the patty on your McCheeseburger contains ammonia. So does much of the ground beef you find at the grocery store. Disgusting, no? Even more infuriating. What is going on with our country that this is deemed an acceptable food? The more I read, the more turned off I got. So much so, that I have given up ground beef. It's not really a leap for me; I'm not much of a red meat eater. If I must have it for some reason, I'll order it from the local farm in my CSA.

Here's a link to the US patent for the device that treats meat with ammonia. A quick G00gle search will tell you everything you want to know.

Just another reason that I'm making a huge effort to use only "clean" ingredients when I cook.

2 comments:

Amy said...

Hi there, I'm new to your blog and just wanted to say hello.

I recently started buying all of our meat (beef or otherwise) at a local farm and it was the best thing we ever did. We know the meat is fresh and they actually sell it vacuum sealed and printed with the date and everything. No more yucky grocery store meat for us!

P.S. I'm not a big ground beef fan either.

Lindsay said...

Yuck.