Last year at Farmer's Market in Burlington, a woman looked at a beautiful two and a half-pound frozen rib-eye at my stand and said 'That doesn't look fresh.' I assured her that it had been frozen at the processor (in Cryovac packaging) and was 'fresher' than what's in stores since it had never been thawed.
I lost that sale and didn't think anything further about it until this week. Today, I was informed that most American consumers don't perceive beef to be 'fresh' unless it is colored hot pink, even though cut beef in its natural state is very purple.
Have you heard about this? The prepackaged "case-ready" beef sold in supermarkets has most likely been treated with carbon monoxide to keep it that pinky-pink color. Yes, that same stuff that comes out the backside of your car and poisons the environment creates the illusion of 'beefy goodness' at the point of sale.
Normally, fresh meat will turn gray after a few days and at that point (I'm told) no one will buy it. The industry painted meat with red dye to resolve this until the practice fell out of favor. The Food and Drug Administration currently allows carbon monoxide treatment (which performs essentially the same function as coloring) because there is no law specifically forbidding it, and because the amount of carbon monoxide in the meat is too small to actually kill you. At least it won't according to the American Meat Institute - incidentally, I did not make that name up. So what we've got on sale these days is hamburger that stays for 12 days looking exactly as fresh as it did on day one.
Doesn't mean it's safe to eat after two weeks - but it still looks darn tasty.
This is a completely deceptive practice. Not because it's being done - I may tackle that subject on another day - but because meat is not being labeled as having a 'preservative process' performed to fix the color. That ain't right.
Carbon monoxide treatment does not make meat safer, more nutritious, or more wholesome. It hoodwinks the shopper who buys with their eyes, and can be counted as part of a trend to keep us blissfully unthinking about what we are eating: where food comes from, how it's grown, how it's processed, and additionally how animals, workers, and farmers are being treated.
This practice is not allowed in Europe, and on these shores Kroger supermarkets have taken the lead in demanding that certain suppliers do not use it. All I want is to know what I'm really buying - whether meats are irradiated, water-added, preservative-added, originate from any country I'm currently not keen on supporting, or are from cloned parentage (which I shall refer to as the "C-word" in the future). What should a truthful carbon-treated meat label state? How about, "Caution, we aren't kidding about the expiration date on this package."
