The most controversial additive on this ingredient list, nitrites and nitrates are unsettlingly common in the deli cooler, and they play roles in curing and preserving the pinkish color of meats and fish. (It's enough to make you want to stock your kitchen with meat-free proteins.) And the sodium erythorbate on the ingredients list? That's "a preservative usually added to meat to maintain aesthetics," Hoffman adds. Today, mechanical separation is commonplace, and the extracted sludge is typically pressed into hot dogs, jerky sticks, and other processed deli meats.Īccording to the FDA, 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the US are used on animals, not people, and that's why we need additives like sodium diacetate: to protect us from our own food system. The goal was to wring every last dollar out of every last carcass, and a British chief trading standards officer estimated the cuts to be 10 times cheaper than traditional cuts. To answer the question, processors began siphoning animal remains - bones and all - through pressurized sieves that extracted all the edible pieces and churned them into a bright pink paste, according to the USDA. See, in the '60s, someone in the meat industry began to question whether there was any use for the gristly pieces of meat left clinging to carcasses after the recognizable cuts had been removed. What makes mechanically separated chicken different than the legs and thighs you covet at barbecues? Well, it comes from the same animal, but it's the waste you typically set out for the garbage truck. Mechanically Separated ChickenĪccording to the USDA, mechanically separated chicken "is a paste-like and batter-like poultry product produced by forcing bones with attached edible tissue through a sieve or similar device under high pressure to separate bone from the edible tissue." Mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969. STAY INFORMED: Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest food news delivered straight to your inbox.
Now, let's dive into each of these to explain what they are, why they're in your hot dog, and what they can do to your body.
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