Topic: Attention meat shoppers...
A half a year ago or so I purchased some ground beef from Walmart that was packaged as is shown below. I cooked it, took one bite, and stopped. It had an odd taste I'd never before tasted in ground beef. While it didn't look, smell, or taste spoiled, the undistiguishable taste concerned me. In fact, it was so foreign tasting I couldn't finish my meal. I've never purchased meat from Walmart again.
I've recently found out what may've been the cause for the odd taste through the following Consumer Reports 6/06 article. I didn't, at the time, think I was tasting anything that approaches spoiledness, and I now think I was tasting the gases used to ensure the meat appeared fresh. Bleck! and Ewwwww!
How old? This ground beef, treated with carbon monoxide, was still red eight weeks after its sell-by date.
Attention, meat shoppers: Your supermarket may be selling ground beef and steaks packaged with gas that keeps it looking red for a month or longer. Our tests found that meat packaged using that method stayed red even if it was spoiled.
The process, used in factory-wrapped (or case-ready) meat, replaces most of the oxygen in the package with other gases. Those include tiny amounts of carbon monoxide, which react with the pigment in meat, producing a red color. The shelf life for ground beef sealed in that mix of gases can be extended from about 14 days to 28 days, and about 10 days to 35 days for whole cuts.
Some supermarket chains, including Kroger and Publix, refuse to carry meat packaged with carbon-monoxide, citing concerns about appearance and freshness or quality.
Bacterial counts that indicate spoilage in meat may make it taste and smell bad, but food safety experts say that it is generally not a health hazard. Thorough cooking will kill bacteria that cause foodborne illness, though it won’t necessarily undo spoilage odors or bad taste.
The U.S. Food and Drug Admin istration determined as recently as July 2004 that it had no objections to the use of carbon-mono xide packaging for fresh meat. In November 2005, Kalsec, a company in Kalamazoo, Mich., that uses a different meat packaging process, petitioned the FDA to ban carbon monoxide for that use. The company argued that federal regulations prohibited substances that “make food appear better or of greater value than it is.” At press time, the FDA was still reviewing the company’s petition.
Consumer Reports decided to do limited testing to check whether carbon-monoxide-packaged meat can stay red even when spoiled. Since there’s no requirement that the process be listed on meat labels, we called manufacturers to verify that the brands purchased were packed with carbon monoxide. We tested 10 samples of locally purchased ground beef and steaks from three companies. We found that the meat appeared red even if it was spoiled or had bacterial counts that were close to indicating spoilage.
By their use- or freeze-by date, seven samples were fresh but two packages of ground beef from one company were spoiled; an additional sample was on the brink of spoilage a day before the stamped date.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cons … eat_ov.htm
I haven't actually called the Walmart meat dept. and asked if they use this process, as Consumer Reports suggests...and don't think I actually need to. I think it's a no-brainer. The packaging they use is the same as is shown above, it did have a foreign taste...and well, it's Walmart.
One of the gases used is carbon monoxide, and it is commonly known that carbon monoxide is a poision. Regardless that the FDA says that small amounts of carbon monoxide aren't harmful, and it may not be in small amounts, but I'm wondering about bioaccumulation.
Although I don't eat a lot of beef, what if a person/family does eat a lot of beef, and they consistently purchase beef that is processed with gases? Is the gas expelled with the other bodily waste product (poop)? Or does it stay in the human system and accumulate? It would then become a slow poisoning if it's not expelled, and is indeed retained in the body.
I don't know the definitive answer to the question of whether or not small amounts of carbon monoxide will bioaccumulate so I may be barking up a nonexistent tree, but I don't have much faith that the FDA would reveal a whole truth for sneakily having their arses covered by revealing half of a whole truth. After all, they've been, ahem 
, before mistaken about their foregone conculsions concerning other products. And anyway, meat packaged this way should be identified with a label...just like I think foods that contain genetically altered properties should be labeled.
At any rate, even though many forum members here are vegetarians, and others do boycott Walmart, this is a heads up about beef that is packaged in this manner. Walmart is most likely not the only grocery store that processes and packages meat this way.
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Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we might as well dance.
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If you spin around on your chair really fast, things around here will make a lot more sense.
me thinks.
I'll tell ya'll...I don't care if the CO levels in these packages are within or even far below acceptable standards. I don't care if there aren't bioaccumulation issues. I don't want it coursing through any part of my body. Another thing to make note of is that while CO is being identified, the other gases used in the process are not. Maybe they are also considered harmless, but still...what are they?
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live and learn.