Friday, October 17, 2008

Abandon all faith, ye who enter here

Have you ever wondered what goes into a hot dog? Maybe even dared to ponder the contents of "canned meat"?

It's nothing insanely mind blowing. Sure, you'll get some odd pieces mixed in like snouts and feet and cheeks, but it's all meat. Then again, plenty of items love to use tripe (that's stomach, just so you know) and other such delicacies in place of more conventional cuts.

All in all, in and of itself eating the odder bits shouldn't kill you. Many are less nutritionally viable, sure, but that just means don't eat liver every day. The real problem comes with the production process of processed meats.

In order to be "processed", a piece of meat simply needs to be altered physically, chemically, or enzymatically. In theory this means that pounding out a chicken breast for some chicken kiev counts as processed meat. More practically, though, it refers more to chemical and enzymatic alterations.

There are three types of processed meats. Those that are cured whole (such as bacon and ham), sausages (like chorizo and those hot dogs), and restructured meats (chicken nuggets, spam, and all their ilk).

Unfortunately for us, processed meats are not the best things that we can be shoveling in. Regular consumption of these items has been linked to not only an increase in colon cancer in adults, but a radical increase (something like 700%) in leukemia for children. Might want to think twice about packing that bologna sandwich for a school lunch.

Now you might be wondering why cured meats are on the same level as these chemically induced, machine shaped cans of meat. After all, it's just salt, right? If it was just salt, we'd probably be better off. Well, aside from the botulism anyway. You see, sodium nitrites, the nasty little buggers in today's curing blend, were added because they protect against botulism (which, being a toxic remnant rather than an actual living thing, can't be cooked out). They also had the added benefit of keeping the color of the meat (otherwise you're left with a weird greyish brownish thing). These nitrites were later determined to have the nasty habit of causing colon cancer. Not so great there.

You may think that you can get away from all of this by cutting back on all of those hot dogs and sausages and perfectly-round lunch meats, but sadly the problem doesn't stop there.

If you take a moment to look around, almost everything has at least some processing done to it. Whole carcasses (at least as whole as we normally find them in any given grocery store) are often injected with chemicals to, say, keep them more moist. Maybe a few enzymes have been added to tenderize it for you. The truth is that these alterations are the most efficient way that we have to maintain a consistent product. I've got nothing against getting the same quality every time I buy something, but is it really worth what it's doing to us?

You can find certain items labeled "natural", which means that nothing has been injected or otherwise added before sale. Of course, this little keyword comes with a higher price tag. On the other hand, if you're a huge sausage fan you can always just buy a grinder and make your own at home. You can even buy the casings if you're jonesing for some links. Doing it yourself not only allows you to avoid all of those snouts if you've a mind to do so, but most importantly you cut out all of the extra chemicals that would (most likely) otherwise be added in. Fresh sausage only keeps for 3-5 days, so either don't make too much at once, or invite the family over for a grill out.

I have to say, though, farm to fork eating sounds better every day.

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