Sleight of Hand from the Meat Industry

Next time you're shopping for meat, poultry or fish, remember two words: meat glue.

Sounds disgusting, doesn't it? It's what the food industry uses to literally glue scraps and leftovers together to form one perfect-looking cut of meat. Scraps of beef, for instance, can be stuck together to form what looks like a perfect tenderloin; scraps of fish can be joined to form what looks like a fillet.

The obvious financial shenanigans aside--are you paying for the tenderloin, or for beef scraps?--let's look at what the meat glue itself is made from. The two primary kinds are very different, although both act as protein binders. The less objectionable type is transglutaminase, which in the 1960s was first isolated from guinea pig livers. Thankfully, I guess, the global operation known as Ajinomoto (purveyor of such fine flavor enhancers as MSG) began using bacteria to produce transglutaminase, which it sells under the brand name Activa.

Activa actually does look good when compared with the second type of meat glue, a combination of thrombin and fibrinogen, most often obtained from bovine and porcine blood plasma. Cow blood. Pig blood. In other words, your chicken may also be pork, at least in part. Your flounder may also be cow, at least in part.

The ick factor aside, if your supermarket is less than honest with consumers--yes, it's been known to happen--and your religion specifically excludes pork from your diet, you may be violating your own religious laws unknowingly. Or perhaps you're a modified vegetarian eating fish but not meat; again, you're violating your own moral and/or ethical standards without your knowledge.

The website of FX Technology, the Nebraska-based company that produces the thrombin-and-fibrinogen meat glue known as Fibrimex, says its products are "derived from a vast assortment of proteins," which is even more frightening than just knowing about the cows and pigs. The company also says their product will "change the way you think about meat."

Mission accomplished, Fibrimex! It already has.