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Enhanced Meat?

Goodpasture

Well-known member
Enhanced meat, sometimes referred to as value-added meat, is any meat product that has been “enhanced” by the addition of a solution. In the United States, enhanced meat must be properly labeled according to the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines. There are a couple of different methods in which meat can be enhanced.

Typically, enhanced meat is simply a cut of meat that has been injected with a water solution that contains salt and sodium phosphate, a solution that is supposed to add both flavor and moisture to leaner cuts of meat. Such enhanced meat products are labeled accordingly and often bare words similar to “enhanced with up to 10% of a solution.” According to the FDA, meat animals are bred to be leaner than in years past and the addition of a solution, which constitutes enhanced meat products, helps make meat containing less fat moister and more flavorful.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-enhanced-meat.htm

And people wonder why beef (along with the white bread texas toast, french fries cooked in trans fats,) is linked to cancer...........

Frankly, give me a 16 oz grass fed beef steak, a side order of spinach salad with red onions and tarragon vnegar dressing, and I bet it does more for you than to you.
 

mrj

Well-known member
Yep, we never shoulda given up our straight English breeds!

We just crossed that Continental blood with our good English cattle and bred all the fat, flavor, and tenderness right out of US cattle!

So....some good University professors and Grad students went to work to figure out how to add some tenderness, flavor, and moisture (as opposed to fat) back into the beef with a little injected marinade.

Darn! They shouldn't fool us into thinking that tender, lean, great tasting beef we fixed for supper is 'the real thing', when,without that marinade and if I failed to cook it just right, it would be tough as an old boot and I'd be mad and go back to eating 'foul'.

RobertMac, don't go ballistic about beef fat. I have NEVER believed, or posted that it isn't good for a person. Just going with the trend of some people, even ranchers, of all people, in lambasting progress in the cattle/beef industry.

My preference, too, is a grass-fed steak, but I want the 'real' native range grass-fed cattle, none of that washy, well fertilized pampered grass requiring inches of rain per week to grow! And a little age on that animal, please. Then cut the steaks thick, 2" is generally adequate, hang it for at least three weeks.......and enjoy!

The salad sounds great, though. But french fries.....in ANY fat....no thanks. Cut them by hand and on the large side, then olive oil sprinkled on, then Mrs. Dash's seasoning and ROAST the things. That is good, healthful eating!

mrj
 

Tex

Well-known member
mrj, I think you are totally right on this one.

I don't know about the difference between the dry (low rainfall) land grass fed and the east's more growthy grass. It does take a little skill (management) to finish a steer on grass, but with higher grain prices, this will be more profitable for producers.

If you finish a steer off on either, and you have to use the old genetics, not the big continental breeds, which almost have to have grain to finish off.

It is too bad that the packing industry pushed the latter.
 

PPRM

Well-known member
mrj said:
Yep, we never shoulda given up our straight English breeds!

We just crossed that Continental blood with our good English cattle and bred all the fat, flavor, and tenderness right out of US cattle!

So....some good University professors and Grad students went to work to figure out how to add some tenderness, flavor, and moisture (as opposed to fat) back into the beef with a little injected marinade.

Darn! They shouldn't fool us into thinking that tender, lean, great tasting beef we fixed for supper is 'the real thing', when,without that marinade and if I failed to cook it just right, it would be tough as an old boot and I'd be mad and go back to eating 'foul'.

RobertMac, don't go ballistic about beef fat. I have NEVER believed, or posted that it isn't good for a person. Just going with the trend of some people, even ranchers, of all people, in lambasting progress in the cattle/beef industry.

My preference, too, is a grass-fed steak, but I want the 'real' native range grass-fed cattle, none of that washy, well fertilized pampered grass requiring inches of rain per week to grow! And a little age on that animal, please. Then cut the steaks thick, 2" is generally adequate, hang it for at least three weeks.......and enjoy!

The salad sounds great, though. But french fries.....in ANY fat....no thanks. Cut them by hand and on the large side, then olive oil sprinkled on, then Mrs. Dash's seasoning and ROAST the things. That is good, healthful eating!

mrj

mrj,

My opinion is you have just hit on the variety of factors that are truly what keep our product from getting additional premiums. Al of those factors influence the taste and eating experience. i don't know how wide scale it could be done. The biggest limiting factor I see is cooler space to dry age....

But it IS amazing what people will pay for this better tasting meat....I haven't found the limit as of yet, LOL,


PPRM
 

mrj

Well-known member
Tex, why did the "packing industry push the big continental breeds"?

Wasn't it the health professionals who pushed leaner beef, which I believe was a major reason the Continentals got popular, right along with the extra muscle/pounds of calf for the producer to sell?

It looked like a win-win situation to most everyone in the cattle business, IMO. It seems a majority of us have always fallen for 'fads' in cattle over a LOT of years that I recall. And there were problems with the old English breeds from "Compressed Cattle" on to the eye and udder problems of Herefords and others withmore familiarity with other breeds could add to the list if honesty prevailed.

However, I do believe those who point out there is a lot of difference/problems within breeds, as well as across breeds yet today.

But, I don't think "cookie cutter" beef is a real solution, either. Different people have different preferences in beef.

It seems logical to me that more time on grass and less grain will ultimately produce the best beef, along with adequate dry aging, for those who can afford to buy the beef produced that way.

mrj
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Going to grill T-bones after the football homecoming game this afternoon. They have 45 days dry aging and boy they look GREAAT! Makes my mouth water . At every guests table I have a printed record of the animal's ScoringAg records. Everybody fights over who gets the printed record to take home.
 

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