Saline Injected Meat

[purple.alien.giraffe]

Very well "said" Chief.

So what you're saying is, long winds aren't neccesarily bad winds.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

So what you're saying is, long winds aren't neccesarily bad winds.

I know where you live.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Kayelle]

Very well "said" Chief.

+1

 

[Roll_Bones]

WOW, it never occured to me to read the ingredients on the meat labels. I guess I better start. I don't want meat that has been injected with saline.

You have been buying it and enjoying it for some time now. This is not new and discontinuing the process could indeed result in dissatisfaction by many customers.

So I had occasion to buy a chicken today. Looked at Walmart and Krogers.. there was no chicken available that didn't have at least a 12% solution of brine.

So my 4.71 pound chicken had 12% brine added, that's .57 pounds of brine.
I paid 99 cents a pound, so the Tyson company made 56 cents on that brine solution.
Multiply that by a few millions of chickens, and that is quite a profit margin.

Kinda like the tail fat that is now left on chickens.. that probably added a few million to the bottom line too.

These companies spend a lot of money on adulteration too. IMO it would be more cost effective to skip the injection process as its not free and adds cost to process.
They are doing this for many reasons with adding weight being included.
There are folks on this forum that would take the chicken back if the Popes nose was removed.

Instead of injecting, why don't they just brine them to improve flavor? Could it be that brining won't increase the weight? And why can't they offer a choice of injected and non-injected?

Traditional brining takes time. Injecting takes very little time.
I have no issue with the salt solution. I even add more salt to the meat in most every case.
I can say without doubt that if these companies were to discontinue injection, their product would suffer as people are used to the final product.

 

[Andy M.]

I know where you live.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

Something is wrong in the UP of Michigan.

The Chief (neither Goodweed or Longwind) has NEVER put up a post with just five words. Five hundred words, yes. Five words, never.

I think the poster is an imposter. Send out a search party.

Hang in there Chief. We're coming to save you.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Something is wrong in the UP of Michigan.

The Chief (neither Goodweed or Longwind) has NEVER put up a post with just five words. Five hundred words, yes. Five words, never.

I think the poster is an imposter. Send out a search party.

Hang in there Chief. We're coming to save you.

I agree, Andy...maybe Chief has taken ill or worse... has laryngitis of the hands.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Don't get me started you guys and gals. I'm not afraid to turn this into a 527 page novel, right here, right now. And for those who have read my still-in-work novels, you know I'm not just blowing longwind!

Maybe I'll have to put in a post that tracks a ham sandwich from lips to expulsion from the body. I did that report for a class. Or maybe I'll put in one about a FET amplifier (anybody here know what that is? Well do ya? Yeh, that's what I thought.).

I'm so dejected, and overly melodramatic.

Ahh, c'mon. I was only kidding. I'm happy as a brookie in a bubbling spring with a bucket of grasshoppers (yeh try saying that three times).

There. Was that long enough, and silly enough for ya?

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Mad Cook]

This is driving me crazy and I wonder if anyone else has a problem with it. More and more I go to the supermarkets and find meat - pork, chicken, turkey, maybe beef but I haven't checked, that has been injected with a saline "enhancement" solution for "better flavor" and "moister meat". I HATE IT! It completely changes the taste of the meat for the worse and it's purely to plump up the meat with water so it will weigh more and cost more. It's just greed. And now that few supermarkets do their own butchering, there is often no choice but the pumped up ones. I had to go to Whole Foods and pay their high prices just to get an uninjected pork roast. It's bad enough that they've bred all the flavor out of most meats - now this! It's hard for me to understand that there has been no outcry over this practice. I told the Safeway Meat Manager that I we going elsewhere to buy the roast because all of his were adulterated.
Good butchers and butcher shops seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird or I would take my business to them. I'm looking for a good one now that isn't 20 miles away.

Anybody else have a problem with this practice?

Sadly, a similar technique is used these days to make mass-produced bacon and ham. I really had to search hard to find a shop selling dry-cured bacon when I moved here. Traditionally cured bacon and ham take time which the big manufacturers don't want to spend. And, of course, with modern refrigeration the preserving aspect of the old style curing is no longer necessary.

The famous Wiltshire black Bradenham hams are now extinct, having been made since 1781. The trade mark was bought up by one of the big bacon and ham makers who dropped it when they decided that the length of time to cure and mature it wasn't cost-effective. To hell with tradition and the customers who bought the stuff.

Fortunately I have two very good independent butchers in the village so don't have to depend on s/market meat. They are both heavily into traceability and locally produced meat. In Glossop, near where I keep Horse, there is a butcher who slaughters the local meat that he sells in his own abattoir . He was involved in a programme on television called "Kill It, Cook It, Eat It" which was very enlightening. The series followed the journey of farm animals from the pasture to the plate. There was an interesting interview with one of Mettrick's slaughter men who'd left to work in a big commercial abattoir but had come back to Mettricks because he couldn't stand the conditions and the way the animals were treated in the big place!
Kill It, Cook It, Eat It should have shown us a typical abattoir | Culture | theguardian.com