Chicken tumbling to add water – a widespread industrial practice

[kristopher]

Chicken tumbling to add water – a widespread industrial practice
It is legal to add water and additives to bind it in, even protein of other species, so long are they are declared on the label


Felicity Lawrence
The Guardian, Friday 6 December 2013 12.09 EST


Chicken fillets are 'tumbled' in cement mixer-like machines to bulk them up with water. Photograph: Alamy

The industrial practice of tumbling chicken fillets in large cement-mixer-like machines so that they take up water is widespread. In some cases chicken meat undergoes a further process in which more water is injected into it.

A Guardian investigation 10 years ago exposed Dutch manufacturers using the technology to adulterate chicken meat with heavily disguised beef waste.

Companies in Germany and Spain were extracting proteins by hydrolysis from beef and pig hides and even from cattle bones and selling them in powder form to be mixed with water – the added proteins lock water into the flesh so that it does not flood out when the chicken is cooked.

The companies making the protein powders had found ways of extracting the protein so the DNA was hard to detect. The FSA had to work with laboratories to develop new methods of testing to establish which species were being used. It was this work that led to tests able to detect horse DNA in beef.

Efforts to police and stop the ...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/06/chicken-tumbling-water-industrial-practice-additives

[mike_c]

1. capitalism and institutionalized selfishness are the implacable enemies of ethical behavior....

When the primary corporate value is profit, anything that increases profit without breaking laws-- or at least without getting caught-- is encouraged and rewarded.

[kristopher]

2. What's most bad is that it *isn't* against the law.

It's no different than a butcher with a thumb on the scale.

[Laelth]

3. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[happyslug]

4. I believe this has been illegal in the US since the 1960s

I notice they just cite European sources (including England) for the practice.

I did run across "Plumping" Chicken in the US, but that is the injection or Plumping, which is the practice of injecting salt water and other ingredients into the Chicken, a different process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumping

Please note the Wikipedia article is poorly written, it implies the Plumped Chickens can be sold as "100% Natural Chicken", which is true, but the label must also say “enhanced with up to 15% chicken broth" or similar language if "Plumped".

http://notinmyfood.org/posts/2839-what-are-they-pumping-into-your-chicken

Thus Europe may be doing BOTH, adding water with the tumbler AND the plumbing the chicken from the wording of the Article in the Guardian.