Has anyone on DU heard of this? Meat Glue.

[Lint Head]

[GoneOffShore]

1. Yes - David Chang talks about it.

What's the big deal?

[ohheckyeah]

3. It's dangerous, as the video pointed out

and it's deceptive.

[BlueStreak]

5. Isn't that the normal process for chicken nuggets and most chicken patties?

It seems to me that Wendy's ran ads about a decade ago advertising that they WERE NOT (basically) using meat glue to assemble their chicken patties. The implication was that McDonald's was.

[ohheckyeah]

6. I don't know....

I've never eaten a chicken nugget or chicken patty in my life and the only fast food commercial I remember is "where's the beef."

[BlueStreak]

9. Where's the beef? Just inside the meat glue amd pink slime.

[ohheckyeah]

10. Appears so....

it's gross.

[sir pball]

11. It is neither dangerous nor deceptive unless you've never seen a whole piece of meat.

I'm speaking absolutely and categorically from years of firsthand experience with the stuff.

Your own body produces transglutaminases for many, many reasons, including wound healing - it's becoming not-uncommon in kitchens to use it to seal up cuts that just won't close; peel it open, drop a pinch in, bandage tight and Bob's your uncle. There's probably a physical inhalation risk, but...don't go tossing handfuls of it into the air?

As to it being somehow "deceptive", we had the rumor going here this summer that you can somehow glue all the trimmings from a cow together and make a mock tenderloin...which is just laughable. The grain, marbling, and cartilage penetration of the meat isn't changed by glue so you'd have to very painstakingly align everything piece-by-piece to even try to make a "fake steak". The most common use in restaurants is to make boneless "fish", gluing two filets together skin-side-out. If that deceives you, well, call up Dad and complain he never took you fishing as a kid.

Yes, commercial operations use it to bind meat paste (itself a classic French preparation, believe it or not), but I don't concern myself with the world outside fine dining.

[ohheckyeah]

12. I have a freezer full of mountain trout....

thanks very much. My experience and your experience don't equal everyone's experience. And the glued meat is, according to the video, dangerous in that it takes longer to cook parts of it so it can't be eaten rare.

Condescending much?

[sir pball]

13. I'm fine, thanks.

Condescending would be a remark on destroying the subtlety and beauty of fresh trout with a home freezer, but I'm not one to judge that.

Anyway. Having finally watched the video, my jaw is on the floor. Not because my eyes have been opened but because it's unbelievably misleading. The reporter is, in my expert opinion, outright lying when he says he can't tell a difference between the whole steak and the handful of scraps doused with Activa and rolled up - I've done that myself for shits and giggles and it is absolutely nothing like a whole cut. "Indistinguishable" my ass. The EU-banned stuff isn't even "meat glue" per se, it's thrombin-based binders which is something I've only heard of, never seen in the wild...transglutaminase is much more stable, practical, and useful. And the masks, I lol'ed when he was all like "this shit is DANGEROUS!" Sure, if you tossed a handful in the air and took a few deep huffs of the aerosol you'd probably get pretty well screwed up, I can't imagine glued-together lungs are too pleasant, but it's not some horrid BSL-4 chemical you have to go on lockdown before opening the bag. (And no, there's no chronic risk. Your body will process anything you do inhale in the course of the day, since your body produces the enzymes itself).

The bacterial contamination is actually a legitimate point, but that assumes the user of the meat isn't aware it's been glued, which I still firmly state is impossible.

Maybe Australian meat providers are doing this, but in 18 years in the business I have never seen a glued cut of meat. I'll testify to that under oath.

[DJ13]

2. "We guarantee a longer penis in just 3 minutes!"

[Lint Head]

4. Penis glue?

[Agschmid]

7. Yes.

[X_Digger]

8. Meh, I don't cook anything rare, so..