You are getting what you pay for $1 buys you dogfood

photo via: Yahoo Online

Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun..  We all know the song and sing it with a smile but do we really know what is really in this sandwich, hidden inside the processing of the meat?  With beef around $2.50 a pound how can any restaurant afford to serve a hamburger for a dollar and make it a quality meal.  A recent article in Yahoo magazine details some of the processing and you might be surprised, or disgusted, by what you are eating at the drive thru!!

In an effort to make the meat more cost effective the companies have contracted with a processing plant, which has USDA approval, to use beef parts that would have typically been used for pet food. Modern technology created a way for processing plants to have the ability to run beef trimmings: heads, hooves and other unmentionables, together with the beef.  However these parts are full of bacteria, it needs to be clean enough for human consumption, no E. coli or Salmonella for the masses, to do that they need to expose it to ammonia gas.  According to a New York Times Article, the process of injecting beef with ammonia was perfected by Beef Products, Inc.  Initially the USDA found that the injection of ammonia into the beef products was so effective in removing bacteria the company was exempt from routine testing of their meat products, that exemption is now under review. 



This is taken directly from the New York Times article and frankly I find this rather disturbing:

"With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone. Testing has revealed: E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. "

All the general public will see on the ingredient list for ammonia gas is "processing agent" but isn't ammonia gas a concern, doesn't cause blindness if it gets into your eyes and can burn the skin if you come in contact with it? Apparently it does but is it okay to ingest ammonia gas residue in small doses.  Small doses of toxic substances have been approved for human consumption in the past, antifreeze is used as a artificial flavorings in processed foods now.  

I hope they wash their hooves first!!

If you want to eat a good healthy meal you need to know where that food comes from, processed foods are just that, processed.  One of the reasons companies can make so much money selling processed foods is that they can recover non edible product and repurpose it into something you are willing to put into your mouth and eat.  I have seen my dog chewing a cow hoof but I don't think I would want to give it a bite, would you?

Read the labels and read "The truth about your weight gain" from Yahoo Online to learn about some of the things you might have right now in your cupboards..