BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution

Subject: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 09:31 PM

I don't know if this applies anywhere outside the U.S. and probably Canada.

Quite a few years ago (maybe as much as 10) pork started coming out with some kind of "12% solution" that was advertised as "natural" to "enhance" the flavor of the meat. All I could tell was that it made it very slippery to handle, hard to cut, and too salty to eat. I've complained about this to the butcher in one of my local grocery stores and he said I should hear what the butchers think about it--they dislike working with it because it is much easier to cut themselves when handling the stuff. There are a few places where I can buy the un-adulterated pork, and I keep my fingers crossed that some of it remains available.

They've been adding something to turkey for years, a salty broth (I try not to buy this kind of bird, but sometimes it's all I can find in the size I want), and when I noticed that the chicken thighs I bought yesterday were enhanced I was dismayed, but figured I'd cook without salt, thinking it had gotten the turkey treatment. But this stuff was more like what they put in the pork. It handled differently, and despite really cooking the bejesus out of it, this meat was still pinkish, too soft, and kind of slick. It wasn't spoiled, it was weird. I cooked two thighs each, but after tasting it neither of us felt like eating more than one, and that was a challenge. I took the rest back to the store today for a refund. I don't often return things to this store--but I couldn't imagine cooking the rest and I really thought something was wrong with that kind of processing. They said they hadn't had any other complaints.

So, was it me, was it a hyper-infused batch of meat that was an anomaly, or is more of our meat being treated so that those consumers who don't know how to cook won't manage to dry out their pork and chicken? The butcher told me it was done to the pork because people would cook it too dry. Is that what they've been doing to their chicken? (I actually prefer it cooked till it's falling off of the bones, and I like the little chewy bits you sometimes get when you cook it long enough, like where the wing rested against the side of the crock pot.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 09:39 PM

Don't know, Maggie, because I get all my pork and beef from a locally owned packing house which also owns the adjacent grocery store. They also raise and own most of the animals they slaughter on their own ranches.

Chicken is a different story. Most of what they carry is Tyson or something called 'Smart Chicken'. I haven't noticed that any of it has been treated but I know about the turkey thing. Self basting or whatever.

What does help the 'untreated' poultry is to cook or roast it breast side down if it's a whole bird. You can also put butter (unsalted, preferrably) under the skin all over it.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: bobad
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 09:45 PM

I think it is something along these lines. The product I find it totally disconcerting in is "fresh" scallops, they are so laden with phosphate solution that you can't sautee them up without them steaming from all the liquid released, then they are overdone without browning.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Deckman
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 10:01 PM

Maggie, not imagining things at all. This is all part of the "social engineering" that's effecting all of our lives. The sequence was something like this:

We're too fat

let's eat more lean

pork is good, but too fat

let's raise leaner pork

leaner fat burns easily

let's add stuff to keep it more moist

it tastes better

it doesn't burn so easier

it SELLS BETTER

YIPPEE!!!

any more questions? Cheers, Bob, still in Everett

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Deckman
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 10:07 PM

I fergot to add: With all appologies to A. C. Doyle!

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 10:54 PM

I got one of those so-called butterball turkeys once- never again! I can always get untreated ones here.

I can usually find reasonably good stuff from my butcher. Much of it comes from a packing plant about 30 miles out of town. Haven't had the problem you describe with chicken, but it comes from a provincial source. Two grocery markets near us cook chicken, whole or parts, and sell it hot; we buy it from them and rarely cook it ourselves any more.   

I stay away from most products from the big-name packers. Back bacon (Canadian) from Schneiders about the only exception.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 11:46 PM

I looked at a package of something called "lamb tips" at Trader Joe's recently. It said "May contain up to 20% of a solution". Checked the ingredients and found several chemicals listed, the only one of which I remember is propylene glycol.

I said: "That's not a solution -- that's a problem!" Needless to say, I didn't buy it.

Find a good butcher and buy fresh, unpackaged meat from animals they've cut up themselves.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 12:09 AM

This was a big name brand--Tyson. At one time a local variety called Pilgrim's Pride advertised that their chicken was well-fed, no hormones, minimally processed, etc. etc. Now it has the same solution.

Looks like I'll have to cut back on the size of the poultry servings (see the Getaway thread--ice cream scoops it is!) to afford to buy a better sort over at Central Market. $4 a pound versus $1.19 a pound.

As was mentioned above, I do cook chicken breast-side down (usually in my convection oven, though it died this week). In the regular oven I use a covered roasting pan or a covered terracotta pot and it's wonderful (with those crispy edges I mentioned before). In there, breast side up is generally fine.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 05:21 AM

Not to "enhance" the flavour in any discernible but certainly to persuade the customer into buying some very expensive water is the British habit of "pumping up"
processed meats.

The UK Food comission reports in the above article....

"We didn't have to look far for added water. Bernard Matthew's Wafer Thin Turkey Ham boasts that it was a Slimming Magazine Winner in 2004, and if you look at the ingredients you can see why – it's just 60% meat! There's plenty of extra water in this product, perhaps as much as 30%, but without any quantitive declaration of added water there's no way for the inquisitive shopper to find out."

I always make a point of buying "dry" cured bacon!

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 09:10 AM

There are treatments to enhance color, too.

And yeah, it sucks; make friends with the best butcher and fishmonger you can find in driving proximity and use your freezer to make the trips worthwhile. We freeze just about everything and no, it's not quite as good as fresh but it is MUCH better than fresh-with-additives. These progessionals will always be there somewhere, and they know what they're doing and that there is a market to be served with that knowledge.

Ours will order and cut anything we want, any way we want it. Forty pounds of chicken for the freezer? "Sure, lady, 79 cents a pound, wrapped in what size packages?" Take it by the superchilled carton as they get it from their supplier, and divide it up myself? 69 cents. Throw in a leg of lamb? "Sure, wholesale, so we can order the whole case and put it out for sale (out of Easter season), and make out OK or take it home to our family."

And this is not a butcher shop, per se-- it's a small mom/pop grocery that just happens to have real butchers running the store and, since they can, running a great meat department. Ask questions, make friends, eat well.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 09:22 AM

Stilly - Have you tried the meat counter at Central Market at the corner of I-30 and Hulen Blvd? I'd give them a try - or even call them on the phone. [phone]

Central Market

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 11:15 AM

Yes, Wesley,--that's where the chicken is so expensive. But that's where I'll have to get it if I can't find it unadulterated. Albertson's sells Sanderson Farms, minimally processed, but I think they feed it corn only and feed it fast, so it doesn't taste like much.

The only place I buy salmon is at Central Market, and even there, I only buy it if it came in yesterday or today. You want to look at another form of adulterated protein, look at the "color added" farm-raised salmon. It has such a diminished flavor compared to the wild caught, and it is hard on the local environment where they farm it. Plus the farm fish get out and breed with the wild--the debate is raging over what this does to the wild population.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 12:34 PM

I guess I'm pretty lucky: fresh or frozen wild salmon fillets, several sources for grass-fed beef and lamb, free-range chicken, farm-bred "organic" bison....

If the meat isn't fatty or filled with solution, cook it moist. No problem.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: gnu
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:32 PM

Here, they label all pork "seasoned" but say nothing about the salt, which is what "seasoned" means.

Re the "pumping up". I noticed about a year ago that the lean and extra ground beef, which they were selling at pennies above medium and even regular, would shrink in the pan as much if not more and there was a lot of "juice" and NO taste. I stopped buying it. If I need hamburger, I buy the regular or medium and drain off the fat when it's nearly done. It's a better buy and tastes far better. If you cook it properly, and not too often, you don't end up with much more fat in your diet.

Re Butterball brand turkeys, I buy the frozen ones on sale and "donate" them to family dinners at my brother's house. Better than the dried out crap usually served up.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: saulgoldie
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:41 PM

We're all going to be pretty much vegetarians within the next two decades. Eating animals puts a HUGE strain on the environment, from water to petroleum to air to...well isn't that enough?

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0120-20.htm


Saul

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:46 PM

I like the occasional pork loin...and once bought one on sale which, it turned out, was 'enhanced' with those injected 'solutions'. It was almost nasty!

For months, that brand was about the only kind I could find at my usual store. Now I know where to find plain, un-tampered-with pork loins, and avoid those nasty, salty ones like the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:13 PM

Get a meat injector and use it to inject tasty stuff into cheap cuts (which usually have less fat than the more expensive ones). I've done this with garlic "water", barbecue sauce, Worstershire...Worhster...Lea & Perrins "W" sauce, soy sauce, honey....

You can also lard cheap cuts of meat; use either a genuine larding needle (right! just pop around to the shops...) or cut a thing hole. You can look up how to do larding yourself.

Or take a flat, thinnish piece of meat and pound on it to tenderize it (there are cunning little hammers for this, or use the back of a chef's knife, or your imagination) and roll it around some succulent stuffing (oysters, prairie oysters, ham, streaky bacon -- your choice), tie it with COTTON string, lay a couple pieces of streaky bacon across it and bake.

Use cheap meat -- it's lesser fatty and better for you and your pocketbook.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:20 PM

I hadn't thought about liquid being added to the lean beef, but I stopped buying it some time ago because when cooked to the right temperature it is so dry and crumbly (in burgers and such) that it just doesn't taste very good. If I use beef to season soup or other dishes, I don't usually use so much that the fat is a problem. When used for an entree (loaf, burger, etc.) or seasoning it needs fat to taste better.

I remember reading about the meatpacking practices in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. That put me off meat for a while!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:40 PM

Jeez! Road-kill is beginning to sound a lot more attractive. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Hollowfox
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 04:59 PM

SRS: this past week I was scouting around to find out if I could find out what they're calling non-brine-injected turkeys this year ("fresh", "Amish", "minimally processed"), and I found a term that I should have thought of earlier..."kosher". so if there's a kosher shop in your area, or I'm betting if there's a mideastern food store that carries meat, it will be halal (Muslim equivalent of kosher), and that will probably be "minimally processed" as well.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 05:16 PM

Make meatballs from cheap hamburger (or grind your own). Don't bother seasoning them; put them in a slow cooker (crockpot) with equal parts of cheap beer and cheap ketchup. Cook all day, skimming of any grease as needed; serve over noodles or rice for a meal or with toothpicks for an appetizer.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 05:19 PM

"Jeez! Road-kill is beginning to sound a lot more attractive. . . ."
                                  ......Don Firth

I dunno' Don. Its up to you of course but I would personally avoid the skunk. Not telling you what to do or anything.....just my opinion.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 05:52 PM

Undoubtedly wise advice.

But a good-size moose ought to keep one going for awhile. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 06:02 PM

I'd stay away from store-ground hamburger, mainly because of the threat of contamination with Mad Cow bugs or E. coli. If you have a food precessor, you can easily grind your own. I use 50% chuck, 50% round. Lets me control the fat content, as well.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 06:08 PM

We are fortunate in having two butcher shops in town. I would trust their hamburger as much as I would trust anyone's (except my own).

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: bobad
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 07:40 PM

The only way to be sure of the quality of the pig you eat is to do it yourself. All you need to know.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 07:44 PM

Skunk still tastes better than a dead banjo player! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 07:49 PM

Smells better, too!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:03 PM

"...take a flat, thinnish piece of meat and pound on it to tenderize it (there are cunning little hammers for this,.." Rapaire

I, of course, read that as 'cunning little hamsters'.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:12 PM

Beware of everything that is being sold as food these days...

The stuff has been so genetically altered that they may call it what they want, it ain't...

And it ain't all about the genes of the animals... It'a bout the feed as well...

Can anyone here guess how long it takes to grow a "peep" into a full sized chicken with genetically altered feed???





























35 friggin' days, that is how long.... So the chicken you bought at the store today or last week only lived for 40 days from hatchin' to processin'!!!

Something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.........

Beware of what you eat...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Bee
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:32 PM

Superstore here has finally started selling 'unseasoned' pork and chicken, at the same price as the 'seasoned'.

We solved the beef problem by going in with two other families to buy a cow from a local farmer, who raised it and butchered it for us. Second year we've done it. Works out to about $2.00 Lb. for about 130 pounds of meat, 45 of that is lean hamburger, the rest is steaks and roasts. The farmer's an old fella, so some of the meat cuts look like cuts that haven't been available since the fifties - bones in oldfashioned places.

Next year we may buy a pig as well, and eggs will be available soon from a neighbour.

I've had some of that disgusting chicken - came as a bag of cheap frozen flattened breasts, was slimy and nasty and tasted like mildewed sawdust.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 12:42 AM

I went by Central Market this evening. The organic air chilled (as opposed to water, I imagine) chicken is $4.00/pound; non-organic is about $2.79/pound. It makes having chicken more of an event when it costs that much.

One of my favorite essays about eating road kill is in Bailey White's Mama Makes Up Her Mind. I've excerpted that one elsewhere here at Mudcat.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 01:56 PM

I've been thinking about food, and stumbled upon this old thread, so I'll revive it.

This summer I started making my own tortillas. There are four ingredients: flour, salt, shortening and water. They're wonderful when they're very fresh, for a few days, and then they're not wonderful. I make a batch, eat a few and freeze the rest, and when they thaw they're still delicious.

The ones I had been buying in the store had six week shelf dates and several inch long list of ingredients. They could stay out that long and not mold, or dry out much. They're kind of plastic smooth, and they stick together in the package and when they're frozen. I'm sure this has to do with the rollers the dough went through to form them and when they roll off the production line. My tortillas aren't squashed perfectly flat so they don't stick to each other and easily come out of the bag one at a time. (I've made bread for years, and lately with my son away at college I've been freezing half the loaf so I don't have to either stop making it or throw a bunch out.)

I buy a better quality of flour, it costs more than twice as much as the discount grocery flour, but I don't bake as much as I used to, and I'm more comfortable with what I hope is healthier grain.

I've also gone through a change in some of the meat I use. I no longer buy ground beef. I buy chuck roasts on sale and freeze them in 1 pound portions. I use my Kitchenaid grinder attachment to grind beef when I need it, and I have some extra beef fat in the freezer if the grind calls for more than is on the chunk.

Modern industrial food is getting downright scary. I'm growing and canning and freezing a lot of stuff, and buying organic when I go to the store.

Just blowing off steam, but maybe some of the rest of you have things you have started doing to short circuit the food industrial complex and it's health hazards.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 04:09 PM

To the 'food industrial complex', it's not really 'food' 'as we know it Jim' - it's just a 'product' to 'market' and make a 'profit' from.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 08:37 PM

No problem in getting good butcher-cut meat here in Alberta. Good beef the year around, and locally ground beef in extra-lean, and lean.
For stews and such, we buy roasts, cut them up and freeze them in quantities desired.

Our packaged tortillas are fairly good (made in province, several types including multigrain, chipotle) but yes, homemade are best. We seldom make our own, however.

Local lamb is only available in the stores for a short time each year. We buy an extra leg or two and freeze them. The New Zealand lamb is available year-round, but we don't like the taste. Could be preservatives and the 'solution'.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 08:47 PM

Just look for that MSG on the label and take a pass if you find it...

Yer lucky, Q, to have access to good foods... Here in the US in most metropolitan areas you have to really hunt for "real" food... Getting harder to find it on the rural areas where the farms are, as well...

If it ain't MSG, it's antibiotics... 'Er stuff that has had its DNA severely messed with...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 09:31 PM

Pity shortening is chock full of transfats. I made my own tortillas once and they were wonderful. There's a Mexican restaurant near here that makes their own in a fancy machine. You can watch them work their way across the heated metal plates that they bake on. They're wonderfully fluffy and light.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 11:14 AM

I don't use a vegetable shortening, I use one that is a combination of lard and vegetable oil, with no trans-fats. But I try to use shortening as little as possible in my cooking. I prefer extra virgin olive oil, butter, and a cold-pressed canola (rape seed) oil that is a healthier process than the traditional way canola is made (find information about this from the Dr. Weil web site).

I've heard arguments for using msg in some cooking, from Lynne Rosetto Kasper on her radio cooking program. But better to not have it in your food automatically.

I've only found lamb from New Zealand, but I'll look around. My next door neighbor told me about a place where he buys organic grass-fed beef and maybe they would have local lamb also. And there are some places now commercially raising venison - I wonder how it compares to wild hunted venison? Buying the healthy meat means it costs a lot more, so you tend to eat less, but that is generally a good thing.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 02:14 PM

Bison is becoming increasingly popular here, but the best cuts go to restaurants.
For some reason they load bison-burgers with pepper here, way too much for me.

We use mostly olive oil and butter in cooking; lard only in pastry (to me, there is no substitute).

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 10:52 AM

Although everything is presented and packaged in the Supermarkets in the UK I can't say that I totally trust what I am buying unless it is actually labelled organic and a far too expensive option to buy too much of. The chicken I tend to get is supposedly RSPCA approved in the hope that the welfare of it was ok up until slaughter. The old butcher shops are very few and far between these days so it is not always practical to go hunting for one even if it is better quality.

On the otherhand there has been a nudge towards offal and cheaper cuts things that people might have overlooked when buying the general family shop. I have been tempted but is this going to be any safer?

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 08:36 PM

I've had it with unappealing watery meat in general, but a pouch of so-called honey cured ham that we bought some months back stood out from all the rest. There was no taste of honey sweetness at all. It was swimming in some kind of muck that was something like vaseline, something like snot, but slipperier and slimier than either. It took awhile with soap and hot water to get the feel off my hands.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Ed T
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 09:17 PM

Many meats (especially chicken and fish) are soaked in a bath of Sodium tripolyphosphate. It assists the meat to absorbs water, thus more $ in the pockets of the sellers and less value to the consumer. It is disgusting stuff, has some preservative value, but little overall function than to soak up water? It is also used in cleaners and soaps.


"Sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) is a strong cleaning ingredient that typically can rid dishes and fabrics of soil and spots. Its key function is that it allows surfactants to work at their full potential. Also, it prevents deposition of soil and acts as a pH buffer. It softens detergent water and can be used as a water treatment, as well. Many household cleaning products, including surface and toilet cleaners, contain STPP due to its cleaning component.

The uses of sodium tripolyphosphate also include using it as a preservative. It can be used to preserve foods such as red meats, poultry, and seafood, helping them to retain their tenderness and moisture. Pet food and animal feed have been known to be treated with STPP, serving the same general purpose as it does in human food. STPP also has been used in helping to preserve the quality of drinks such as milk and fruit juices.

There are many other uses of sodium tripolyphosphate, as well. It is used in paint as a pigment dispersant. Ceramics use it to help disperse clay, and paper mills use it as an oil-resistant agent when coating paper. It additionally has been used as a tanning agent in making leather, and the minerals in cement have been known to be treated with it. Sodium tripolyphosphate also has been used as an additive in toothpaste due to its cleaning action.

It generally is advised that sodium tripolyphosphate be stored in a cool and well-ventilated area. Direct sunlight and damp areas usually should be avoided. If STPP comes into contact with skin, the area should be thoroughly rinsed. If eye contact is made, it is important to immediately flush the eyes. STPP is not intended to be ingested or directly inhaled either by human beings or by animals."



sodium-tripolyphosphate

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 12:49 AM

There's lard and there's lard. If the lard you get is shelf-stable (not in the refrigerator section) then it's been hydrogenated, i.e. trans-fatted. You can't get any other kind here. The healthy lard is the kind you have to keep in the 'fridge. Lard as it's made from the pigfat, before it's hydrogenated, has no trans-fats. And nothing else works in biscuits.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 02:24 AM

Well, Lardy Lardy Lardy as they say!

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 02:42 AM

'Healthy bacon' patents raise questions

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 03:28 PM

Ed, you've just answered a question for me. I've been buying some inexpensive packs (relatively) of fish, found in the freezer section of my local grocery. And once it is thawed I need to literally "wring it out." I hold it between my hands and literally massage the flesh from the top down to push out all of the water, because it interferes with recipes to have all of that water. Sodium tripolyphosphate. I'll have to find a new source of frozen fish, or read more labels. Thanks!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Sooz
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 04:05 AM

This all sounds a good argument in favour of a vegetarian diet.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 12:10 PM

Maggie, as a vegan, the idea of eating meat brings with it a myriad of problems, environmentally, socially, and polluting inside and out.

A vegan way of life is not a diet but a commitment to physical and social health.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 09:19 PM

Have not used anything but veg oil/olive oil in at least 40 years. Biscuits? Who needs them?
Avoid MSG: it makes me dizzy. Well, DIZZIER!?
Meat is best not eaten at all for many reasons but I am finding my body refusing to subsist on veggie diet; it did for 20 years but not the last 20.
Hard to find decent organic anything in Quebec and, when I do, it is expensive.
I do try not to eat anything with unpronounceables in it.
Maple Leaf is now advertising sliced ham without. This is not on our food list but it does give me hope that mainstream foods may become fit for human consumption in the future.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 11:28 PM

I cook a lot from scratch, so we don't have many processed foods in the house. When I do use shortcuts it is things like spaghetti sauce, and I read the labels. I am an omnivore, though, and am not planning to cut out meat and fish, but I don't tend to eat as much of it as I used to.

I'm giving some consumable gifts this year, and one of them is some Puerto Rican meat pies called "empanadillas" to my ex, whose mother shared her recipe with me. I'll send them over and he can freeze them individually to use in the next few weeks. I am considering dropping a lot of the sugar-based holiday baking in the future. I spent the fall not eating sugar at all, and with the temptation of the cookies come the problems of sugar that are more pronounced when it is reintroduced to the diet.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 12:26 AM

Consumable gifts are the best. Not a lot of nick-nacks cluttering up the house, that you can't throw away because the giver might come see that they're missing. I have decided that any new breakable nicknacks will accidentally fall off the mantle and onto the hearth next earthquake.

Subject: RE: BS: MEAT and the 12% Solution
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 05:02 PM

So the Amazon ad with this thread is showing a commercial brand of spaghetti sauce. It knows we're talking about food, just can't quite parse out the tone of the conversation. :)

SRS