| Folks, I am sure that I am the last person to know that companies are adding carbon monoxide, CO, to our meat. I am probably behind on the information curve on this subject because my wife and I buy our meat at a local grocery store that still has a butcher and still knows their customers by name.
From what I can find on the subject, the amount of carbon monoxide used is low enough not to be harmful to us in itself. I am not a chemist, so I cannot be sure of this.
What carbon monoxide does when combined with meat is to keep the meat red. This is so that it looks fresh – even when it isn’t fresh.
I began researching and thinking about this after one of my students told me that they had purchased some meat that looked good, but when they got home and opened the package the meat was bad.
My goal with this column is to share with you some of the things I discovered in the last few days.
The first thing that I found out was why I did not know about this.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not require that this new meat coloring system go through the formal approval process. The FDA’s approval process allows for “public review.”
What has actually been done is called GRAS, “Generally Recognized As Safe. “The GRAS procedure does not required public review. I am sure that the reason I did not know about this is because there was no public review.
How can something be “Generally Recognized As Safe” when it is a brand-new process?
As near as I can tell, the FDA has not agreed or admitted to agree with the carbon monoxide additive. The FDA has an in-house rule where it “does not disagree.”
It is interesting to note, however, that the European Union has banned carbon monoxide use in its meat and tuna, and Canada and Japan have banned its use in tuna.
Oxygen in our air is what causes meat and tuna to turn gray. By reducing oxygen and by adding carbon monoxide, and by putting the meat in leak-proof, tamper- proof, hermetically sealed packages, the meat is now what is called “case ready.”
Furthermore, when the oxygen is reduced and carbon monoxide is added to our meat, it is given the industry term name of “modified atmosphere” packaged meats.
The reason the meat industry wants to color our meat is because after the meat has turned gray and the fat has turned yellow they claim that it is still fit for human consumption. But you and I don’t like to buy gray meat with yellow fat.
When carbon monoxide is added to our meat, it will stay red almost forever. This means that visible proof of the meat being spoiled is being hidden from us.
A lawyer for several of the large meat packaging companies says, “Color is a poor indicator of freshness. When a product reaches a point of spoilage, there will be other signs that will be evident…for example, odor, slime formation, and a bulging package…so the product will not smell or look right.” UGH!
And then of course, my wife had to remind me that we are not permitted to open the package in the store. The only way to check the freshness is to open the package after you get home.
To me, this is just one more situation that shows how out of control our government is. Well, it is under control. But, that control is by large corporations that can deliver large bags of campaign donations to select candidates.
As far as I am concerned, this whole carbon monoxide thing is just a way to fool us into eating meat that is in the process of spoiling.
This is probably a good time to remind you of some of the other things that our government has done that seem to be against the public’s best interest.
Some time back, I wrote about the Creekstone meat packaging company.
Our government forced them to stop advertising that they were 100 percent testing their meat for mad cow disease, E coli, and other bad stuff.
The government stated that Creekstone’s testing of 100 percent of its meat implied that the meat packaged by the large companies that was not tested 100 percent was not as good or as safe.
The second case I wrote to you about was Oakhurst Dairy.
This small dairy was advertising that its milk had come from cows that had not been given artificial growth hormones. Our government stopped them for the same reason as Creekstone.
The government said, “Oak-hurst was implying that milk that was not hormone-free was unsafe.” And, then the government ordered the small dairy to stop its advertisement.
To bring this to a close, there is the case where our government wants to change the definition of milk. When I wrote to you about this, it was because the large cheese and ice cream companies wanted to take all the good stuff out of the dried milk being imported.
The new definition of milk would include the term “ultra-filtered milk.”
Since I wrote that column, I have discovered that India – the largest milk producer in the world, which milks animals other than cows – would be included and, according to some, they have very little to “virtually non-existent dairy sanitation.”
The large corporations want to incorporate into the definition of milk the term “other species of milk in the nomenclature for ice cream.”
The reason for “other species” in the description is because India milks goats, sheep, yaks, and buffalo, and who knows what else, other than cows.
U.S. patent number 6,416,797 calls for using liquids from any lactating animal.
Enough already! I am sure you get the picture.
Bill Horne
Bill Horne is a professor of economics at Southern State Community College and a columnist for The Times-Gazette.
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