Pink Slime: What you can eat may not be food

Raising the Yuck Factor

I cannot say I am one to be overtaken by food scares that fill our headlines from day to day but I do worry when the way our food is derived departs from as it were standard procedures to concoctions that make Frankenstein plasticine play.

In all honesty, I should be unconcerned with the uproar about “pink slime” because I never use minced beef in my cooking and rarely ever eat meals that have minced beef as part of the ingredients.

“Pink Slime” or to give its it more fanciful name - Lean Finely Textured Beef – plumbs the depths of sick-making yuck that could have you filling sick-bags with more than the contents of your stomach.

Taking science beyond food

As the story goes, some food industry genius thought after beef was cut off the bone there was still too much being discarded and he came up with the process of heating the beef trimmings in centrifuges to separate the fat from the meat, the exposing the product to ammonium gas to kill bacteria and this is mixed with ground beef in what Beef Products Inc. (hardly reminiscent of your dear grandma’s kitchen in name or purpose) might have called the triumph of economics and science over waste.

Reading this is stomach churning enough for my somewhat rigid constitution but what makes it alarming is the way the food industry has subsumed the regulators who trot out the idea that this whole thing is safe.

I will however contend that just because the processing of food is safe does not mean it is fit for purpose; the safety of processing must not just be demonstrated but it must be seen to not to take the Yuck Factor to the point of chronic emesis.

These unnatural things

Indeed, one must commend Jamie Oliver [1] for exposing this atrocious travesty that takes the nutritious and edible out of food leaving it just barely amenable to mastication with our digestive systems struggling to derive any nutrients before the muck is passed out our bodies made more susceptible to unknown attacks having not evolved to the chemistry necessary to process this stuff.

It is bad enough to learn that beef is treated with carbon monoxide [2] to prevent its natural browning due to rancidity or to note the rise of Frankenstein Sugars [3], but nothing prepared me for when I read that beef from a cow apparently suffering from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [4] (BSE) or “Mad Cow’s Disease” ended up in 8 states and the Island of Guam [5].

What is real?

There is no reason to touch the topic of Mechanically Recovered Meat [6] if you have not filled three sick bags already, but when you realise that sausages and chicken nuggets from conveyor-belt mass-market and cheap outlets do not lend themselves to traditional methods your begin to wonder what else is sacred about our food.

This is not to say that there is no need to find ways to improve quality and yield for food products be they plant or animal derived but the tampering with natural processes to do with colour, texture, taste and unnatural derivations has to be more tightly regulated and probably stopped, besides, with the certificates of food-worthiness given by food agencies we are left to better trust our instincts than allow for these compromised agencies in cahoots with the Food Industrial Complex to certify products stray dogs might well sniff at.

Debunking Myths

According to Snopes.com [7], McDonald’s stopped using mechanically recovered meat in Chicken McNuggets in 2003. When I feel better, I might be tempted to try it again.

Sources

[1] BBC News - Could 'pink slime' be rebranded?

[2] Akin Akintayo: The beauty of the dead cow

[3] Akin Akintayo: The rise of the Frankenstein Sugars

[4] Bovine spongiform encephalopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Akin Akintayo: Cult of the Mad Cow

[6] Mechanically separated meat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] snopes.com: Pink Slime and Mechanically Separated Chicken

Thought Picnic: A malaise of inexactitudes

Charges might not bring justice

Three people are facing six charges over the sale and distribution of adulterated drugs in a Lagos High Court in Nigeria [BBC][AllAfrica].

The background to the story is that they produced and marketed an infant teething syrup called My Pikin (My Child in Nigerian Pidgin English) containing the engine coolant di-ethylene glycol. [BBC]

I wondered how this could happen since there is a history of contamination with di-ethylene glycol which lead to the passage of the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the creation of the FDA in America. [Healthline, Schwimmer][Wikipedia]

A deficit of exactness

Beyond the general view of greed, dishonesty and criminal activity which plays a part in all sorts of ways, the arraignment and subsequent judicial process would not half bring justice to the matter because this issue is more a manifestation of a malaise in the Nigerian psyche which I would attribute to a deficit of exactness.

Dealing first with time, it is rare to find a developed maturity to time, rather than have someone indicate a particular time prompt, you will find it said – “around a time”, no exactness, no datum just a rough idea of time.

The idea ignores the detail

The rough idea which probably is a kind of estimation or approximation works fine for some things but cannot be applied to all things – unfortunately, throughout my secondary and tertiary schooling in Nigeria there was this knock down saying in Yoruba – Idea la need – this translates crudely to – you do not have to be correct, you do not have to be exact, you do not have to be precise, if it is general, it is fine. [Google]

If you were off target you never got upbraided for not laying down the necessary meticulous steps to get things right because once you found it was wrong you were encouraged to accept the result – a a rough e ni – which translates to nobody would notice you were wrong we can con our way through saying it is fine.

Being very religious, too many disputes can result from people quoting inappropriately from Scripture and many times to suit their own intentions rather than contextualise their reference with appropriate interpretation. The verse gets mangled and listeners endure error with reverence.

A screw loose is left loose

I started my career in Electrical and Electronic engineering and it was interesting to see that when we fixed stuff there could be one or two screws left on the table if the device seemed to hold together, it was left as is – but the screws came from somewhere – I would dismantle the whole device and find where the screws go, but I would be – effico – overly efficient, facetious and pedantic; it is important.

Because, our television went for repairs and when it returned the channel range selectors had been left off exposing live voltage parts which I found my brother twiddling with a screw-driver; he was on a wooden stool but I was angry that we could not get those bits returned and by the time I cautioned my brother sternly I was already in receipt of a terrible electrical shock – touching him.

A recipe of the inedible

We have a society that does not covet the precise and is less bothered about measurements because we seem to have a sense of what is sound and what is not – the precision of cooking recipes in Western food is not easily translated to our cooking – if you had a cookery book you would probably hear the joke – a cup of water, a cup of rice and a cup of salt.

Surely, our secondary school organic chemistry class would have made it clear that one carbon molecule can be the difference between life and death. We were clearly warned that methanol was poison whilst ethanol was ingestible.

Methylated spirit is common whilst alcohol was taboo, the teachers did not want students disregarding the nominally single carbon molecule thereby gulping down methylated spirit – the information was probably imparted in fear rather than as a standard exercise in knowledge transfer.

Against the Nigerian way

Where I portend to suggest an alternative view, I am Western; where my cousin tries to run his department prudently, efficiently with probity and anti-corruption principles he gets called Bature – Hausa for white man – Why doing things right or thinking differently and hopefully objectively should set one apart as to be castigated escapes me.

Crudely, the Nigerian way could subsequently lead to Nigerian losses, Nigerian suffering and Nigerian deaths – that is not to say that some Nigerian ways have not lead to successes, developments and innovation but I would wager that the principals of those ways do not dwell in the malaise of inexactitudes.

Not surprised

So, to find that My Pikin had di-ethylene glycol rather than propylene glycol was not too strange because when a raid was conducted at the premises of the company some containers were falsely labelled one thing for another. [Wikipedia][Wikipedia][AfricanLoft, Coker]

That is beside the point, if there were quality control tests to ensure the exactness of content to the order, and no assumption that what had been done by rote could at times go wrong, if tests included those for batch toxicity – none of the tragedy that ensued would have happened.

Surely, people in the pharmaceutical field would have been aware of historical issues with contamination and adulteration especially in this case and instituted tests and controls to ensure they do not get caught out – this gives substance to the possibility of criminal conspiracy – more than 3 people should be in court.

When I was an intern of 15 at the West African Breweries, I instituted a simple quality check of 12 random cartons of beer twice a day at the end of the conveyor belt and it was amazing what we found from packaging to content – it fed back into the system with corrective action.

Quick profits are bad profits

We need to move on from the shady deal that seems to save lots on the short term but could lead to dire consequences on the longer term.

Indeed, the work of NAFDAC is commendable and is needed just as the FDA is an essential organ of government in the United States but its work seems to be absorbed on preventing criminal activity usually after victims have been laid out on slabs – it is progress, but they need more teeth to monitor the full channel of product management. [NAFDAC][Wikipedia]

I remember when my siblings were growing up they were given Ashton & Parsons Teething Powders; to have a home grown solution create such tragedy is outrageous in the least, but it also means that if we want to replace foreign products with local products we need to adopt the exacting standards of these more developed companies to be viable and prevent criminal sanction. [ExpressChemist]

Therein is the real issue behind the My Pikin saga and there is bound to be more like that until we adapt for exactness in our many walks of life.

Food Science 102: Coal tars

Feeding the devil

Over a week ago, I wrote about additives in food and now The Telegraph covers the topic linking hyperactivity in children to a number of products used to embellish our foods and create the semblance of naturalness where it does not exist.

Hyperactivity does make children quite a handful for their parents and sometimes a social nuisance; children uncontrollable, difficult to placate and barking back with ferocious unruliness can be too disheartening to observe, it has in some cases made me wish to remain childless - if this is because of the food they eat, which is also part and parcel of upbringing, then we probably have a solution to hand.

The list of additives reads like a marriage of Chernobyl and Bhopal.

Tar my food

E102 - Tartrazine - is a lemon yellow azo dye derived from coal tar - it makes you wonder what we are doing eating up the road - this can be found in soft drinks, instant puddings, soups - I might as well get the benefit of smoking than read the whole list that even includes children's vitamins.

This addictive is banned in Norway and was once banned in Austria and Germany, exposure to this stuff can include reactions like anxiety, migraine or even clinical depression. How can this be in food?

E124 - Ponceau - is a synthetic coal tar, well, the synthesis of coal tar rather than derived from coal tar must be an advancement for this red azo dye which is considered carcinogenic and banned in the USA, Norway and Finland.

Found in certain Haribo-brand sweets and cola-flavoured sweets, it is a histamine liberator and intensifies symptoms of asthma.

Tic Tac Tar

E110 - Sunset Yellow - more cola tar used in fermented foods that must be heat treated. Apricot jam, lemon curd and soft drinks get augmented with this additive banned in Norway and able to cause diarrhoea and vomiting. Tic Tac (lime and orange flavour) is more tar for less calories.

E122 - Carmoisine - Also known as Azorubine, a synthetic red azo dye, present in jams, preserves, yoghurts, jellies and breadcrumbs. Asthmatics could be very intolerant of this additive which is banned in Japan, Norway and the USA. Gosh! I am addicted to wine gums.

E129 - Allura Red AC - This is no recommended for consumption by children and it is banned in Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and Norway.

The red colouring is derived from the female Dactylopius coccus - a South and Central American beetle - Yuk! It is said to be quite tolerable and with few side effects, so why is there a widespread ban?

It has not been conclusively proven but rumour has it that children exposed to this substance might suffer erectile dysfunction in adulthood - I guess that is where Viagra comes into its own.

Eat your tattoo

E104 - Quinoline Yellow - Another yellow dye found in ices, cough sweets, scotch eggs and smoked haddock which activists recommend should be eliminated from children's diets.

This is also banned in Japan and the USA, it was once banned in Australia and the stuff is used as a pigment in tattoo parlours. Strewth!

It's food not a mummy

E211 - Sodium Benzoate - This is a sodium salt of benzoic acid and it is used as a preservative killing most yeasts, bacteria and fungi. Basically, it takes the organic out of food.

We in the West at least have controls on the kinds of additives allowed in our foods though I am concerned about the absence of the UK and the Netherlands from the list of countries that seem to be quite stringent about the additives listed.

Unnatural foods

More so, one wonders why there is so much interest in colouring food; whilst natural colours might fade or pale out during processing, the addition of harmful chemicals cannot now be the trade-off for improving the aesthetic appearance of food.

Our food culture now requires all sorts of processing to maintain colour, taste, texture, freshness and even global choice, we individually now have to pay more attention the ingredients of all these foods so not to lay in store long-term health problems which could not be attributable.

I wonder if that is some research being conducted into what makes unruly, anti-social, inconsiderate and rotten teenagers. Albeit, with the amount of tar in the aforementioned products, the road does lead to the stomach.

Food Science 101 - Additives

Advisory: You need a strong constitution to read through this, if you are fussy about food, you might lose other things you like from your food list. Certain depictions of food are completely unpalatable.

Mandatory extras on the menu

I felt a bit last yesterday after walking a few kilometres one end of the Tiergarten to the other end where my hotel is.

At the point, I could not be bothered with going out to eat so I picked up the room service folder and looked to see what would sate my appetite.

A number of meals looked tasty enough, but I got a bit worried about all the superscript numbers that appeared as suffixes at the end of each menu item.

Not one meal had less that 4 of those suffixes, so I looked for the legend and this is what I read.

Food science

Colouring or pigmentation - indicating natural colours no more make food pleasant to the eye.

Preservative - in fact, that is French for condom, jokes aside, we might just be keeping food in formaldehyde, this is getting crazy, it is supposed to be freshly cooked, between kitchen and my room it should not get spoilt. But then, it probably had to be preserved before it was used and then presented as freshly prepared food.

Anti Oxidation additives - this is an area of food chemistry I am not familiar with, the first part being the prevention of rancidity in certain foods and then the other about the benefits of antioxidants in foods, preferably from natural sources.

Flavour enhancer - Is this because the food is not entirely made of what they purport it is made from? For instance many fruit juices of different flavours are usually bulked up with cheaper to produce apple juice which could be up to 80% liquid content.

Maybe human beings have evolved to a state where their tongues no more function as efficiently as they should - you tell me.

Blackener - Thankfully, this not in any of the meals, but it was in the legend. I am sure food can easily be blackened by burning it - why on God's earth would anyone need blackener in food apart from when you are eating squids in squid-ink?

Phosphate - Usually a constituent of fertilizer, I am not sure this is about helping reproductive organs, this was also absent from the listed meals.

Thickness enhancer - You tell me why chicken, fruits, beef or lamb would need this.

There is a whole industry selling the mirage of good food by colouring, flavouring and packing, eventually, we would be able to give cardboard the colour of beef, the flavouring of chicken and the consistency of pork and we may never go hungry any more.

I felt better going to bed on an empty stomach, but German menus by law do have to display all additives put in food, read the menu and leave out the superscripts is the received wisdom on this matter.