Gelatin or gelatine is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also be referred to as hydrolyzed collagen, collagen hydrolysate, gelatine hydrolysate, hydrolyzed gelatine, and collagen peptides after it has undergone hydrolysis. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, beverages, medications, drug or vitamin capsules, photographic films, papers, and cosmetics.
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle. Beef can be prepared in various ways; cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often ground or minced, as found in most hamburgers. Beef contains protein, iron, and vitamin B12. Along with other kinds of red meat, high consumption is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and coronary heart disease, especially when processed. Beef has a high environmental impact, being a primary driver of deforestation with the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any agricultural product.
Mechanically separated meat (MSM), mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat (MRM), or mechanically deboned meat (MDM) is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing pureed or ground beef, pork, mutton, turkey or chicken, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. It is sometimes called white slime as an analog to meat-additive pink slime and to meat extracted by advanced meat recovery systems, both of which are different processes. The process entails pureeing or grinding the carcass left after the manual removal of meat from the bones and then forcing the slurry through a sieve under pressure. This puree includes bone, bone marrow, skin, nerves, blood vessels, and the scraps of meat remaining on the bones.
Ground beef, minced beef or beef mince is beef that has been finely chopped with a knife, meat grinder, mincer or mincing machine. It is used in many recipes including hamburgers, bolognese sauce, meatloaf, meatballs and kofta.
Rendering is a process that converts waste animal tissue into stable, usable materials. Rendering can refer to any processing of animal products into more useful materials, or, more narrowly, to the rendering of whole animal fatty tissue into purified fats like lard or tallow. Rendering can be carried out on an industrial, farm, or kitchen scale. It can also be applied to non-animal products that are rendered down to pulp. The rendering process simultaneously dries the material and separates the fat from the bone and protein, yielding a fat commodity and a protein meal.
There are different systems of feeding cattle in animal husbandry. For pastured animals, grass is usually the forage that composes the majority of their diet. Cattle reared in feedlots are fed hay supplemented with grain, soy and other ingredients to increase the energy density of the feed. The debate is whether cattle should be raised on fodder primarily composed of grass or a concentrate. The issue is complicated by the political interests and confusion between labels such as "free range", "organic", or "natural". Cattle raised on a primarily foraged diet are termed grass-fed or pasture-raised; for example meat or milk may be called grass-fed beef or pasture-raised dairy. The term "pasture-raised" can lead to confusion with the term "free range", which does not describe exactly what the animals eat.
Stunning is the process of rendering animals immobile or unconscious, with or without killing the animal, when or immediately prior to slaughtering them for food.
Organic beef is beef grown according to organic food principles scientifically.
Ractopamine is an animal feed additive used to promote leanness and increase food conversion efficiency in farmed animals in several countries, but banned in others. Pharmacologically, it is a phenol-based TAAR1 agonist and β adrenoreceptor agonist that stimulates β1 and β2 adrenergic receptors. It is most commonly administered to animals for meat production as ractopamine hydrochloride. It is the active ingredient in products marketed in the US as Paylean for swine, Optaflexx for cattle, and Topmax for turkeys. It was developed by Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly and Company.
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company was a California-based meat packaging company. It was forced into bankruptcy due to costs from a meat recall and ensuing litigation.
Specified risk material (SRM) is any of various tissues of ruminant animals that cannot be inspected and passed for human food because scientists have determined that BSE-causing prions concentrate there. The term was referred to in the United Kingdom's Specified Risk Material Order 1997, in the United States Department of Agriculture's, and in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's regulatory response to the first confirmed U.S. BSE case in December 2003.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of the disease the cow becomes unable to function normally. There is conflicting information about the time between infection and onset of symptoms. In 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested it to be approximately four to five years. Time from onset of symptoms to death is generally weeks to months. Spread to humans is believed to result in variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD). As of 2018, a total of 231 cases of vCJD had been reported globally.
Meat on the bone, also called bone-in meat is meat that is sold with some or all of the bones included in the cut or portion, i.e. meat that has not been filleted. The phrase "on the bone" can also be applied to specific types of meat, most commonly ham on the bone, and to fish. Meat or fish on the bone may be cooked and served with the bones still included or the bones may be removed at some stage in the preparation.
Beef Products Inc. (BPI) is an American meat processing company based in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. Prior to high media visibility of its products, it was a major supplier to fast food chains, groceries and school lunch programs. It had three additional plants, which closed in 2012.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is the public health regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that United States' commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. The FSIS draws its authority from the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 and the Egg Products Inspection Act of 1970. The FSIS also acts as a national health department and is responsible for the safety of public food-related establishments as well as business investigation.
Pink slime is a meat by-product used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats, as a filler, or to reduce the overall fat content of ground beef. As part of the production process, heat and centrifuges remove the fat from the meat in beef trimmings. The resulting paste, without the fat, is exposed to ammonia gas or citric acid to kill bacteria. In 2001, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the product for limited human consumption. The product, when prepared using ammonia gas, is banned for human consumption in the European Union and Canada.
Ground turkey, or minced turkey, is a mixture of dark and light turkey meat with remaining skin and visible fat processed together until a "ground" form emerges. The turkey meat, skin, and fat is taken off the bone and processed with additives. The final product has specific characteristics that appeal to customers, including a non pink color and non crumbly texture. The composition of ground turkey is driven by market demand, availability, and meat prices. The majority of ground turkey is made from excess thighs and drumsticks rather than the more costly breast meat. Ground turkey is a common low-fat alternative for ground beef.
Dressed weight refers to the weight of an animal after being partially butchered, removing all the internal organs and often the head as well as inedible portions of the tail and legs. It includes the bones, cartilage and other body structure still attached after this initial butchering. It is usually a fraction of the total weight of the animal, and an average of 59% of the original weight for cattle. There is no singular way to dress an animal, as what is removed depends on whether it will be cooked whole or butchered further for sale of individual parts. For pigs, the dressed weight typically includes the skin, while most other ungulates are typically dressed without. For fowl, it is calculated with skin but without feathers. It can be expressed as a percentage of the animal's live weight, when it is known as the killing out percentage.
Countries regulate the marketing and sale of beef by observing criteria of cattle carcasses at the abattoir (slaughterhouse) and classifying the carcasses. This classification, sometimes optional, can suggest a market demand for a particular animal's attributes and therefore the price owed to the producer.
The Beef Bones Regulations 1997 were a statutory instrument of the British government that limited the sale of beef on the bone. The regulations were implemented as a response to the United Kingdom BSE outbreak over fears that variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans might be caused by the consumption of dorsal root ganglia, which lie near the bone. As well as beef on the bone, all beef-bone derived products were prohibited from sale. This had the effect of outlawing T-bone steaks, prime ribs and oxtail as well as some soups and stocks. Other aspects of the regulations dealt with the deboning of beef and the keeping of records in the food production industry. The restrictions on sales were lifted in December 1999 and the regulations as a whole were revoked in April 2008.
