exerpt on Advanced Meat Recovery(AMR)

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This is an excerpt from a post on one of my news groups. I hope you don't have a weak stomach!!D...........................................After a cow is slaughtered and the standard cuts of beef removed, one is left with a bloody skeleton with a few scraps of meat still attached. To recover any last shreds of meat, the bones, prebroken or whole, may be placed in a giant vice-like device that crushes the carcass into bone "cakes."[95] Out through a sieve at the bottom runs a "batter- like"[96] paste of "spread-like consistency" referred to as mechanically separated meat.[97] The potentially highly infectious spinal cord and fluid may be forced out of the backbone and spewed in the final product.[98] Mechanically separated beef has been "used as a meat ingredient in the formulation of quality meat food products"[99] in the United States since the 1970's.[100] Examples of such "quality meat food products" include hot dogs, sausages and burgers.[101] By law, hot dogs can contain up to 20% of this mechanically separated beef.[102]Although food containing mechanically separated beef must be labeled as such, there are no labels on food in restaurants.[103] So people could be exposed to spinal cord tissue in hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers, and ground

meat products when dining out.[104] Although Europe heeded the World Health Organization's warnings and banned such meat recovery systems years ago, these devices remain one of the best opportunities for prion-infected tissues to enter the human food supply in North America.[105]In 1994, meat processors began using a new technology, called advanced meat recovery (AMR), to help "increase yields and profitability."[106] These systems also extrude meat from the remains of

the carcass under pressure, but without crushing the bones.[107] The American Meat Institute describes the process: "Just as fruit processors use machines to remove fruit from peels thoroughly and efficiently, meat companies use similar equipment to remove meat from some hard to trim bones."[108]The end-product varies from a ground beef-like texture to the consistency of thick tomato sauce.[109] Prior to 1994, only cattle skeletal muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, and

esophagus could be labeled as beef.[110] But by the end of that year, the USDA had already amended the definition of "meat" to include the product of advanced meat recovery machinery.[111] This meant that unlike mechanically separated meat, AMR meat was considered 100% beef and could be labeled as such.[112] With no special labeling requirements, adoption of AMR machinery spread rapidly throughout the industry, largely replacing mechanical separation equipment.[113]Today, the majority of cattle are now processed using AMR.[114] Over twenty thousand tons of AMR beef is produced every year in the U.S., valued at over $100 million.[115] AMR beef typically ends up as a hidden ingredient in hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, and beef jerky, as well as part of ground beef in meatballs, pizza toppings and taco fillings. [116] The danger, once again, is that if the spinal cord isn't removed before entering one of these machines, it is bound to be incorporated into the meat that is produced.[117]Companies are supposed to remove the animals' brains and spinal cords before processing the carcasses through the AMR machinery, but getting out all of the spinal cord can be challenging. "It requires special tools and skills," says Glenn Schmidt, a meat scientist at Colorado State University. "The workers have to reach down to the neck region of the carcass to remove the spinal cord by scraping or suction, and sometimes they don't get all of it."[118]In 1997, the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen obtained USDA inspection records through the Freedom of Information Act showing that a significant percentage of AMR samples were turning up contaminated with central nervous system (CNS) tissue (brain or spinal cord).[119] Instead of simply requiring that spinal columns be removed from carcasses before being placed in advanced meat recovery systems, the USDA responded by merely directing its inspectors to continue testing samples of AMR meat for the presence of central nervous tissue.[120]

 

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