Someone dumped an open container of Kraft Turkey Bologna on our driveway this morning. When I picked up the mess I took a look at the ingredients out of curiosity, not being a regular consumer of processed meat. Here’s how the ingredients list started:
“Ingredients: Turkey ingredients (Mechanically separated turkey, turkey), water…”
So what’s the difference between “mechanically separated turkey” and “turkey”? And what exactly is involved in mechanical separation? Why is a food manufacturing process part of the ingredients? Is a process now also an ingredient? If that’s the case, shouldn’t one of the ingredients be “debeaked turkey”?
My mind is reeling.
Filed under: eating, everyday life |
Races Like a Girl 
Oh my now my head is swimming. You brought up some very good points! If we are going to debeak, we should also defeather!
The separate listing is legally required, and it”s as bad as it sounds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat
I’m glad I had finished my lunch before reading that.
Did you make a flesh suit out of the mechanically separated bologna? I would have.
Ahh, looks like someone was trying to catch a dog that got loose somewhere. Bologna is good bait.
Should have taken it to where there are seagulls, hawks or crows, and let them have the rest.
Mechanically separated meat is usually done with high pressure water, then extracted with a series of filters. The water is reclaimed after a processing batch job and cooked, along with the bones and undesired parts, into stock or broth. The resulting meat contains a lot of fatty tissue. Some “factory farm-spent” animals are completely processed this way to make use of them one final time.
So when little Fifi runs out the front door again and makes you chase her for four blocks away from home, you know what to get from the 99 cents store.