Enhanced Meat??

http://tinyurl.com/r257

After reading this article, I remembered buying a roast that had an
ingredients list on it, listing "natural and artificial flavors".

Text of Article below...



AJC.COM

Pumping up meat
As more grocers shift to prepackaged meat, 'enhanced' with salt and water,
critics ask how trend benefits consumers

By ELIZABETH LEE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


How can you tell whether a package of fresh meat has been injected with a
solution?

Check the package label on front. U.S. Department of Agriculture policy
says that meat with added liquid must state on that label that it contains
a solution, and the percentage. The nutrition facts box, usually on the
back of a package with added solution, lists the ingredients.

The USDA prohibits adding water to meat; it's considered an adulterant. But
if that added water contains any other ingredient, such as salt, it's
considered a solution. That's OK, as long as the package label identifies
it.

You may notice another water statement, usually on poultry labels. That's
something different. A retained water percentage refers to how much water
is absorbed by chickens or turkeys from being dunked in a chilling tank or
sprayed after evisceration, as a food safety measure. That labeling rule,
which took effect in January, was intended, in part, to encourage
manufacturers to reduce the amount of retained water by making that
information available to consumers.

The retained water labeling rule applies only to single-ingredient, raw
meat and poultry. It doesn't apply to meat or poultry with added solutions.




To the casual shopper, the two packs of New York strip steaks look almost
identical. The foam trays. The clear plastic wrap. The rich, red color and
creamy marbling.

Take a closer look, though, and differences start to appear. One package
lists 12 percent added beef broth, salt and other flavoring agents and
preservatives among its ingredients.

But many shoppers never notice the fine print.

"I figured meat is meat," says Angela Wyatt of Norcross, shopping at a
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Roswell.

That's not always true anymore.

Meat is changing from a fresh commodity to a processed food. That
transformation is affecting how we cook, what's available, whether it's
more or less likely to contain bacteria that can cause foodborne illness
and even how much sodium and food additives we consume. And it may mean the
supermarket butcher is going the way of the milkman.

Industry observers say the kind of meat available is splitting into two
types: increasingly processed, for everyday cooking, and premium meats for
a niche market. The middle ground, the cuts of minimally processed meats
with no added ingredients that have been a supermarket staple for decades,
is slowly dwindling.

Supermarkets are buying prepackaged meat that can be unloaded from a
shipping carton directly into self-service cases, much like luncheon meat.
Already the standard for most chicken and nearly half of all pork and
ground beef, this type of packaging is moving slowly to top-drawer cuts
like steaks, chops and roasts. The industry term for this meat, prepared in
a meat-packing plant rather than a store's backroom, is case-ready.

Prepackaged meat promises to boost profits for supermarkets by lowering
labor costs and extending shelf life. Other than sturdier, leak-resistant
packaging, the benefits for consumers are less clear. Stores are less
likely to run out of popular cuts. But they may be more likely to restrict
the variety they stock to top sellers.

Often case-ready meat is injected with a saline solution and preservatives
to add juiciness or marinated to boost its appeal to time-pressed shoppers
looking for a quick-fix dinner. The practice, long-standing for
Thanksgiving turkeys, has spread to most chicken and pork and some beef.

If the meat contains added water, it is less likely to toughen if
overcooked. That enhancement -- called pumping -- can give a consistent
flavor and texture.

It also means shoppers pay meat prices for water, says Thomas Schneller, an
assistant professor in the meat department of the Culinary Institute of
America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Injected meat is usually priced lower per pound,
but not always. Depending on where you shop, you may actually pay more for
injected meat. Solutions typically range from 8 percent to 15 percent of
added liquid, with some marinated meats containing as much as 30 percent.

Meat experts say it's one thing to pump boneless chicken breasts and thin
pork chops, which have little fat or natural flavor and dry out quickly if
overcooked. It's another to add as much as 12 percent water to premium cuts
like USDA Choice filet mignon and New York strip, or to fatty meats like
pork butt.

"It's a terrible trend," says Bruce Aidells, author of a number of meat
cookbooks and a former owner of Aidells Sausage Co., which makes gourmet
links. "Whenever a meat company can sell you water at the price of meat,
they're winning."

Retailers and industry representatives say the added liquid makes even
steak taste better.

"We believe it improves the overall quality of the product and gives our
customers a better eating experience," says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen
Burk. "Case-ready meat is superior in tenderness and texture and juiciness
and flavor to non-enhanced beef cuts."

Kristine Davis of east Cobb County isn't so sure. She buys case-ready meat
regularly, including pork with added water and salt. She's noticed a
difference only on thin pork chops, which had such a pronounced change in
texture that she dug through her trash can to read the label from the
discarded package. That's when she learned they were injected.

"It was too wet," she says. "It didn't seem natural. It didn't taste like
all the other pork chops."

Like Davis, more than 60 percent of shoppers aren't aware that the meat
packages they drop in their carts have changed, according to a 2002 study
for the Food Marketing Institute, a supermarket trade group.

Yet odds are they've eaten case-ready meats before, even if they don't
realize it. Quick-service restaurants, midscale chains and even a few fine
dining ones rely heavily on similar products, called pre-portioned cuts.
Like their supermarket counterparts, many are enhanced with added liquid.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest food retailer, converted to all case-ready
in 2001. Much of Wal-Mart's pork, chicken and beef also are enhanced with
added liquid.

"We are always looking at ways to provide our customers with quality
products at low prices," Burk says. "We thought it was a good fit for us
and our customers."

Super Target has adopted case-ready meat as well, including Hormel's line
of steaks with up to 12 percent added liquid. Kroger stocks case-ready beef
in all of its metro Atlanta division stores, although it still operates
full-service meat counters with butchers in some locations. Kroger's beef
isn't pumped, but it does sell injected pork under a Kroger label, and
Tyson's injected chicken.

As prevalent as case-ready beef is in metro Atlanta, there are some sizable
holdouts. Publix intends to keep its meat cutters as a service to shoppers
and to distinguish itself from competitors, says spokesman Lee Brunson.
Whole Foods and Harry's have bucked the trend by expanding full-service
counters and shrinking self-serve cases in the past year.

Still, industry predictions call for growth. About a fourth of all packages
of beef sold in 2001 were case-ready. That should grow to one-third by
2005, estimates the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Economics are driving the trend, industry observers say. Meat cutters are
among the highest-paid supermarket employees. Wal-Mart converted to all
prepackaged meat just 11 days after a group of meat cutters in a
Jacksonville, Texas, store became the chain's only employees to vote to
unionize. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Christi Gallagher says the union vote didn't
influence Wal-Mart's decision to embrace case-ready, saying the chain was
already testing the meat products.

Competitors took notice. Wal-Mart's dominance with price-conscious shoppers
has other chains examining their costs and looking for ways to pare them
down.

"Taking what was once one of the most labor-intensive departments and
finding a way to save on labor and replace expensive union meat cutters
with a ready-to-package, ready-to-display system for case-ready meats ends
up making a big difference in their bottom line," says Dan Murphy, vice
president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute, a beef, turkey
and pork industry lobbying group.

Differences to note

Depending on the store, you may pay more -- or less -- for case-ready meat,
or meat with added solutions. A pound of Hormel USDA Choice filet mignon,
with up to 12 percent of an added solution, costs $12.99 at SuperTarget. A
pound of USDA Choice filet mignon with no added liquid costs $10.69 at
Costco; $16.99 at Publix.

The extra salt in pumped meat shouldn't cause a problem for most healthy
Americans, nutritionists say. But for those on reduced-sodium diets, it's
another story, particularly if they don't realize they're buying meat with
added salt.

A 4-ounce Hormel beef tenderloin steak with a 12 percent salt solution
contains more than five times as much sodium as an uninjected steak: 310
milligrams, or 13 percent of a day's allowance, compared with 56 milligrams
for the plain steak.

"My parents are both on blood pressure medicine," Davis says. "They don't
eat canned food because they don't want the sodium. I wonder if they
realize they're getting it [in meat]."

Aside from salt, the most noticeable change is texture. Meat may taste
softer, or mushier, because the pumping process causes muscle fibers to
unwind, absorb water and swell in size.

"When you compare it to the real thing," Aidells says, "it doesn't have the
taste."

Trying for tender

Once a brand name goes on a package of meat, expectations change. The
meatpacker or retailer wants to deliver a consistent product. Since the
taste and tenderness of beef vary, that can be a challenge. Injecting
flavoring solutions evens out differences in taste. Tenderizing meat,
either through inserting many small needles or double-edged blades, or
tumbling, somewhat like a clothes dryer's action, can make the texture more
consistent. Both processes can improve the taste and tenderness of leaner
Select beef, the lowest grade typically sold in supermarkets. Choice, the
higher grade found in supermarkets, contains more marbling from fat, which
adds flavor and moisture.

Mechanically tenderized meats do not have to be labeled. The majority of
steaks and roasts packaged for hotel, restaurant and institutional use
undergo this process, according to a USDA risk assessment of bacterial
contamination in such meat. Some supermarket brands labeled as "tender,"
but without added liquid, also are mechanically tenderized.

That risk assessment considered whether needle-tenderized steaks were more
likely to contain deadly E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria. It called for more
research but concluded the risk was only slightly higher: about seven
additional illnesses due to tenderization for every billion steak servings.

But in June, an Illinois meatpacker recalled nearly 740,000 pounds of
frozen beef, mostly injected steaks, that may have been linked to five E.
coli 0157:H7 illnesses, according to a recall notice posted on the USDA Web
site. That recall notice recommended cooking similar products to 160
degrees, the same temperature recommended to kill potential E. coli
bacteria in ground beef. But Steven Cohen, a USDA spokesman, said the
agency has not raised its minimum recommended temperature for cooking
steaks and roasts from 145 degrees for medium rare.

The USDA has begun sampling solution-injected beef for E. coli
contamination, as it does at ground beef packing plants.

The butcher's tale

From behind the counter of his family's New York butcher shop, where he'd
started learning the trade at 8, Ed Cifu watched generations of families
come in to buy meat. He held on to the store even when every other
independent butcher shop nearby closed. Finally he, too, packed it in. As a
supermarket meat cutter, he watched from the back room as shoppers circled
empty cases looking for deeply discounted ground beef and rushed meat
cutters when they brought out a fresh supply.

Now Cifu is meat coordinator for Whole Foods' Southern region, which
includes the Harry's Farmers Markets. He's trying to attract a different
customer there, one who wants organic or natural meat with minimal
processing, bought from a glass display case where it has rested just a few
hours. It's a niche market, but one that he believes is growing.

He's training meat cutters to deliver smiles and cooking advice as well as
wield a knife and make sausage. Customers want that contact with a butcher,
he believes.

"They want to be reassured about what they're buying," Cifu says. "They
don't want to just go to a wall."

Overall trends say otherwise. Independent butchers have been vanishing for
decades. Metro Atlanta has just a handful of stand-alone butcher shops
left, such as Shields Meat Market in Decatur and Oak Grove Market in
central DeKalb County. A recent issue of a supermarket trade publication
suggests that grocery-store butchers may soon disappear from the landscape,
too.

The Food Marketing Institute, a trade group for supermarkets, surveyed
shoppers in 2002 on their attitudes toward case-ready meat. A third said
they believe meat packaged at a plant is not as good a quality as meat
packaged in the store. Only 6 percent said they believed case-ready meat
was of higher quality than store-packed.

E.W. Leonard of Morningside, buying dry-aged steaks, sausage links and
Frenched racks of lamb at a Whole Foods store in Midtown, says he hasn't
bought meat at a self-serve counter in years. He prefers to speak to the
meat cutters at Kroger and Whole Foods, and have them select and wrap his
purchases.

"My perception, whether it's correct or not, is it's fresher," Leonard
says.

Davis, of east Cobb, says how meat is packaged doesn't matter to her. But
what happens to it before it goes into the package does. She has diabetes
and shuns marinated meats in case they contain too many carbohydrates that
might wreak havoc with blood sugar levels. Now she's got something else to
scrutinize, something she hadn't counted on before.

"Maybe," she says, "I need to go read the label."

--
My favorite animal is steak.--Fran Lebowitz

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:13:38 -0700, Jake wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/r257

After reading this article, I remembered buying a roast that had an
ingredients list on it, listing "natural and artificial flavors".

Text of Article below...




Thanks for the article. It is getting harder and harder to find real meat
any more.

--
Bob M in CT
Remove 'x.' to reply

Jake wrote:


How can you tell whether a package of fresh meat has been injected with a
solution?

Check the package label on front. U.S. Department of Agriculture policy
says that meat with added liquid must state on that label that it contains
a solution, and the percentage. The nutrition facts box, usually on the
back of a package with added solution, lists the ingredients.

I never bought much meat at WalMart anyway, but I noticed quite some
time ago that their meat packaging all lists "enhanced" with 8 to 15
percent solution. I'm not paying for watered meat.

A couple of years ago, I reported a couple of HEBs to the consumer dept of
a local news station for selling poultry packages full of visible water,
and excessive liquid when attempting to brown various beef and pork,
and the liquid ceased to appear a few months later. I don't know if
they ever reported on it, or whether research might have scared them
into legal compliance.

--
jamie )

"There's a seeker born every minute."

I would suspect that the chain stores doing this would only open opportunity
to the regular butcher shops, yeah there are a few left, to market the fact
that they don't "inject" their meat with anything, or to specialize and try
to take some of the Whole Foods, Organic/Natural, no Anti-Biotic/Growth
Hormone meat market away.

PJ

--


"If voting could really change things,
it would be illegal." - Unknown

"Nothing can confound
A wise man more than laughter from a dunce."
- Lord Byron

"There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it." -
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky





"Jake" wrote in message
...
http://tinyurl.com/r257

After reading this article, I remembered buying a roast that had an
ingredients list on it, listing "natural and artificial flavors".

Text of Article below...



AJC.COM

Pumping up meat
As more grocers shift to prepackaged meat, 'enhanced' with salt and water,
critics ask how trend benefits consumers

By ELIZABETH LEE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


How can you tell whether a package of fresh meat has been injected with a
solution?

Check the package label on front. U.S. Department of Agriculture policy
says that meat with added liquid must state on that label that it contains
a solution, and the percentage. The nutrition facts box, usually on the
back of a package with added solution, lists the ingredients.

The USDA prohibits adding water to meat; it's considered an adulterant.
But
if that added water contains any other ingredient, such as salt, it's
considered a solution. That's OK, as long as the package label identifies
it.

You may notice another water statement, usually on poultry labels. That's
something different. A retained water percentage refers to how much water
is absorbed by chickens or turkeys from being dunked in a chilling tank or
sprayed after evisceration, as a food safety measure. That labeling rule,
which took effect in January, was intended, in part, to encourage
manufacturers to reduce the amount of retained water by making that
information available to consumers.

The retained water labeling rule applies only to single-ingredient, raw
meat and poultry. It doesn't apply to meat or poultry with added
solutions.




To the casual shopper, the two packs of New York strip steaks look almost
identical. The foam trays. The clear plastic wrap. The rich, red color and
creamy marbling.

Take a closer look, though, and differences start to appear. One package
lists 12 percent added beef broth, salt and other flavoring agents and
preservatives among its ingredients.

But many shoppers never notice the fine print.

"I figured meat is meat," says Angela Wyatt of Norcross, shopping at a
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Roswell.

That's not always true anymore.

Meat is changing from a fresh commodity to a processed food. That
transformation is affecting how we cook, what's available, whether it's
more or less likely to contain bacteria that can cause foodborne illness
and even how much sodium and food additives we consume. And it may mean
the
supermarket butcher is going the way of the milkman.

Industry observers say the kind of meat available is splitting into two
types: increasingly processed, for everyday cooking, and premium meats for
a niche market. The middle ground, the cuts of minimally processed meats
with no added ingredients that have been a supermarket staple for decades,
is slowly dwindling.

Supermarkets are buying prepackaged meat that can be unloaded from a
shipping carton directly into self-service cases, much like luncheon meat.
Already the standard for most chicken and nearly half of all pork and
ground beef, this type of packaging is moving slowly to top-drawer cuts
like steaks, chops and roasts. The industry term for this meat, prepared
in
a meat-packing plant rather than a store's backroom, is case-ready.

Prepackaged meat promises to boost profits for supermarkets by lowering
labor costs and extending shelf life. Other than sturdier, leak-resistant
packaging, the benefits for consumers are less clear. Stores are less
likely to run out of popular cuts. But they may be more likely to restrict
the variety they stock to top sellers.

Often case-ready meat is injected with a saline solution and preservatives
to add juiciness or marinated to boost its appeal to time-pressed shoppers
looking for a quick-fix dinner. The practice, long-standing for
Thanksgiving turkeys, has spread to most chicken and pork and some beef.

If the meat contains added water, it is less likely to toughen if
overcooked. That enhancement -- called pumping -- can give a consistent
flavor and texture.

It also means shoppers pay meat prices for water, says Thomas Schneller,
an
assistant professor in the meat department of the Culinary Institute of
America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Injected meat is usually priced lower per
pound,
but not always. Depending on where you shop, you may actually pay more for
injected meat. Solutions typically range from 8 percent to 15 percent of
added liquid, with some marinated meats containing as much as 30 percent.

Meat experts say it's one thing to pump boneless chicken breasts and thin
pork chops, which have little fat or natural flavor and dry out quickly if
overcooked. It's another to add as much as 12 percent water to premium
cuts
like USDA Choice filet mignon and New York strip, or to fatty meats like
pork butt.

"It's a terrible trend," says Bruce Aidells, author of a number of meat
cookbooks and a former owner of Aidells Sausage Co., which makes gourmet
links. "Whenever a meat company can sell you water at the price of meat,
they're winning."

Retailers and industry representatives say the added liquid makes even
steak taste better.

"We believe it improves the overall quality of the product and gives our
customers a better eating experience," says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen
Burk. "Case-ready meat is superior in tenderness and texture and juiciness
and flavor to non-enhanced beef cuts."

Kristine Davis of east Cobb County isn't so sure. She buys case-ready meat
regularly, including pork with added water and salt. She's noticed a
difference only on thin pork chops, which had such a pronounced change in
texture that she dug through her trash can to read the label from the
discarded package. That's when she learned they were injected.

"It was too wet," she says. "It didn't seem natural. It didn't taste like
all the other pork chops."

Like Davis, more than 60 percent of shoppers aren't aware that the meat
packages they drop in their carts have changed, according to a 2002 study
for the Food Marketing Institute, a supermarket trade group.

Yet odds are they've eaten case-ready meats before, even if they don't
realize it. Quick-service restaurants, midscale chains and even a few fine
dining ones rely heavily on similar products, called pre-portioned cuts.
Like their supermarket counterparts, many are enhanced with added liquid.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest food retailer, converted to all case-ready
in 2001. Much of Wal-Mart's pork, chicken and beef also are enhanced with
added liquid.

"We are always looking at ways to provide our customers with quality
products at low prices," Burk says. "We thought it was a good fit for us
and our customers."

Super Target has adopted case-ready meat as well, including Hormel's line
of steaks with up to 12 percent added liquid. Kroger stocks case-ready
beef
in all of its metro Atlanta division stores, although it still operates
full-service meat counters with butchers in some locations. Kroger's beef
isn't pumped, but it does sell injected pork under a Kroger label, and
Tyson's injected chicken.

As prevalent as case-ready beef is in metro Atlanta, there are some
sizable
holdouts. Publix intends to keep its meat cutters as a service to shoppers
and to distinguish itself from competitors, says spokesman Lee Brunson.
Whole Foods and Harry's have bucked the trend by expanding full-service
counters and shrinking self-serve cases in the past year.

Still, industry predictions call for growth. About a fourth of all
packages
of beef sold in 2001 were case-ready. That should grow to one-third by
2005, estimates the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Economics are driving the trend, industry observers say. Meat cutters are
among the highest-paid supermarket employees. Wal-Mart converted to all
prepackaged meat just 11 days after a group of meat cutters in a
Jacksonville, Texas, store became the chain's only employees to vote to
unionize. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Christi Gallagher says the union vote
didn't
influence Wal-Mart's decision to embrace case-ready, saying the chain was
already testing the meat products.

Competitors took notice. Wal-Mart's dominance with price-conscious
shoppers
has other chains examining their costs and looking for ways to pare them
down.

"Taking what was once one of the most labor-intensive departments and
finding a way to save on labor and replace expensive union meat cutters
with a ready-to-package, ready-to-display system for case-ready meats ends
up making a big difference in their bottom line," says Dan Murphy, vice
president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute, a beef,
turkey
and pork industry lobbying group.

Differences to note

Depending on the store, you may pay more -- or less -- for case-ready
meat,
or meat with added solutions. A pound of Hormel USDA Choice filet mignon,
with up to 12 percent of an added solution, costs $12.99 at SuperTarget. A
pound of USDA Choice filet mignon with no added liquid costs $10.69 at
Costco; $16.99 at Publix.

The extra salt in pumped meat shouldn't cause a problem for most healthy
Americans, nutritionists say. But for those on reduced-sodium diets, it's
another story, particularly if they don't realize they're buying meat with
added salt.

A 4-ounce Hormel beef tenderloin steak with a 12 percent salt solution
contains more than five times as much sodium as an uninjected steak: 310
milligrams, or 13 percent of a day's allowance, compared with 56
milligrams
for the plain steak.

"My parents are both on blood pressure medicine," Davis says. "They don't
eat canned food because they don't want the sodium. I wonder if they
realize they're getting it [in meat]."

Aside from salt, the most noticeable change is texture. Meat may taste
softer, or mushier, because the pumping process causes muscle fibers to
unwind, absorb water and swell in size.

"When you compare it to the real thing," Aidells says, "it doesn't have
the
taste."

Trying for tender

Once a brand name goes on a package of meat, expectations change. The
meatpacker or retailer wants to deliver a consistent product. Since the
taste and tenderness of beef vary, that can be a challenge. Injecting
flavoring solutions evens out differences in taste. Tenderizing meat,
either through inserting many small needles or double-edged blades, or
tumbling, somewhat like a clothes dryer's action, can make the texture
more
consistent. Both processes can improve the taste and tenderness of leaner
Select beef, the lowest grade typically sold in supermarkets. Choice, the
higher grade found in supermarkets, contains more marbling from fat, which
adds flavor and moisture.

Mechanically tenderized meats do not have to be labeled. The majority of
steaks and roasts packaged for hotel, restaurant and institutional use
undergo this process, according to a USDA risk assessment of bacterial
contamination in such meat. Some supermarket brands labeled as "tender,"
but without added liquid, also are mechanically tenderized.

That risk assessment considered whether needle-tenderized steaks were more
likely to contain deadly E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria. It called for more
research but concluded the risk was only slightly higher: about seven
additional illnesses due to tenderization for every billion steak
servings.

But in June, an Illinois meatpacker recalled nearly 740,000 pounds of
frozen beef, mostly injected steaks, that may have been linked to five E.
coli 0157:H7 illnesses, according to a recall notice posted on the USDA
Web
site. That recall notice recommended cooking similar products to 160
degrees, the same temperature recommended to kill potential E. coli
bacteria in ground beef. But Steven Cohen, a USDA spokesman, said the
agency has not raised its minimum recommended temperature for cooking
steaks and roasts from 145 degrees for medium rare.

The USDA has begun sampling solution-injected beef for E. coli
contamination, as it does at ground beef packing plants.

The butcher's tale

From behind the counter of his family's New York butcher shop, where he'd
started learning the trade at 8, Ed Cifu watched generations of families
come in to buy meat. He held on to the store even when every other
independent butcher shop nearby closed. Finally he, too, packed it in. As
a
supermarket meat cutter, he watched from the back room as shoppers circled
empty cases looking for deeply discounted ground beef and rushed meat
cutters when they brought out a fresh supply.

Now Cifu is meat coordinator for Whole Foods' Southern region, which
includes the Harry's Farmers Markets. He's trying to attract a different
customer there, one who wants organic or natural meat with minimal
processing, bought from a glass display case where it has rested just a
few
hours. It's a niche market, but one that he believes is growing.

He's training meat cutters to deliver smiles and cooking advice as well as
wield a knife and make sausage. Customers want that contact with a
butcher,
he believes.

"They want to be reassured about what they're buying," Cifu says. "They
don't want to just go to a wall."

Overall trends say otherwise. Independent butchers have been vanishing for
decades. Metro Atlanta has just a handful of stand-alone butcher shops
left, such as Shields Meat Market in Decatur and Oak Grove Market in
central DeKalb County. A recent issue of a supermarket trade publication
suggests that grocery-store butchers may soon disappear from the
landscape,
too.

The Food Marketing Institute, a trade group for supermarkets, surveyed
shoppers in 2002 on their attitudes toward case-ready meat. A third said
they believe meat packaged at a plant is not as good a quality as meat
packaged in the store. Only 6 percent said they believed case-ready meat
was of higher quality than store-packed.

E.W. Leonard of Morningside, buying dry-aged steaks, sausage links and
Frenched racks of lamb at a Whole Foods store in Midtown, says he hasn't
bought meat at a self-serve counter in years. He prefers to speak to the
meat cutters at Kroger and Whole Foods, and have them select and wrap his
purchases.

"My perception, whether it's correct or not, is it's fresher," Leonard
says.

Davis, of east Cobb, says how meat is packaged doesn't matter to her. But
what happens to it before it goes into the package does. She has diabetes
and shuns marinated meats in case they contain too many carbohydrates that
might wreak havoc with blood sugar levels. Now she's got something else to
scrutinize, something she hadn't counted on before.

"Maybe," she says, "I need to go read the label."

--
My favorite animal is steak.--Fran Lebowitz

Bob M wrote:

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:13:38 -0700, Jake wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/r257

After reading this article, I remembered buying a roast that had an
ingredients list on it, listing "natural and artificial flavors".

Text of Article below...




Thanks for the article. It is getting harder and harder to find real meat
any more.

Tagging on here. Thanks from me too. Guess we REALLY have to
scrutinize those labels, even when we THINK we know what we are
getting. I feel really sorry for people who can be SERIOUSLY
affected by additives that they would not suspect were an issue.

--
Jean B.