Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Multiple Uses of Ammonia



I used to love McDonald's and fast food in general. Loved it, was addicted to it. I had dreams about it. If you were a kid growing up in the 70's McDonald's affected your life adversely and continues to destroy the health of billions are around the world. And I have heard the argument that not everyone has the time or the money to eat healthy. The margins of profit at the dollar menu products are off the charts because it costs them next to nothing to feed you lack of better term POISON. This poison is insidious and destroys your body over time.

I can relate a story of how pervasive the Fast Food grip is. I know who is meticulous about fashion, her looks, and taking care of her body, and she holds two degrees from Columbia University. She is super smart works out very hard and loves the Angry Whopper and fries or Mighty Wings, and you can't convince her to not eat that or give it to her kids. The love for that sort of food starts in childhood which is why billions are spent to marketing to the children. We happily pass this sort of bug or virus that slowly leads to multiple illnesses over time. 

And if you don't think it's an addiction then you are mistaken. Anyone who has had a bag of Potato chips and couldn't stop once the bag was open, or just eat a couple of bites of their favorite ice cream, can relate to what I'm saying. 

I went of the path a little but now back to the point I'm trying to make:
Packs of ground beef are seen in a crate at the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market meat processing facility in Riverside, California, March 29, 2012. U.S. meat packers' losses on beef sales have doubled since a controversy over ammonia-treated scraps dubbed 'pink slime' exploded some weeks ago, with margins nearing their lowest in at least 22 years, an industry estimate showed. Fresh & Easy says they do not use the ammonia-treated filler in their beef products. REUTERS-Alex Gallardo
See Reuters "Pink Slime"

Now a lot of you may already know all this and I know it's not real ground breaking news story stuff but any restaurant that serves hamburger goes out of its way to reassure you how pure and natural it is. Restaurant chains like McDonald's ("All our burgers are made from 100 percent beef, supplied by farms accredited by nationally recognized farm assurance schemes") and Taco Bell ("all U.S. beef, our 100 percent premium beef is USDA inspected, then passes our 20 quality checkpoints") happily vouch for the authenticity of their animal bits. Their testaments to the healthiness and fullness of their meat read out like they were talking about Filet Mignon. And do you remember the E. Coli out break twenty years ago which really hit the FF industry?

Since that time they have been cleaning the burger meat (notice I call it meat, its not all beef). You know, the harsh chemical they use in fertilizers and oven cleaners? It kills E.coli really well. So, they invented a process where they pass the hamburger through a pipe where it is doused in ammonia gas. And you probably never heard about it, other than those times that batches of meat stink of ammonia so bad that the buyer returns it.

The ammonia process is an invention of a single company called Beef Products Inc., which originally developed it as a way to use the absolute cheapest parts of the animal, instead of that silly "prime cuts" stuff the competitors were offering (and the restaurant chains swear we're still getting). Consequently, Beef Products Inc. has pretty much cornered the burger patty market in the U.S. to the point that 70 percent of all burger patties out there are made by them. 

And then there were all white meat nuggets, if I had a restaurant and gave this to they'd put me in jail. This may somehow be legal (mind boggling), but I know it's not right.





Nutrition Facts

Calories in BurgerKing Angry Whopper

Serving Size: 1 serving
Amount Per Serving
  • Calories880.0
  • Total Fat55.0 g
  • Saturated Fat18.0 g
  • Polyunsaturated Fat0.0 g
  • Monounsaturated Fat0.0 g
  • Cholesterol110.0 mg
  • Sodium1,670.0 mg
  • Potassium0.0 mg
  • Total Carbohydrate59.0 g
  • Dietary Fiber3.0 g
  • Sugars13.0 g
  • Protein37.0 g


I love to laugh out loud, you know that belly laugh see if you find this as funny as I did:

NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS?

The meat industry has been trying to raise awareness of other foods that contain ammonia, in response to what it has characterized as an unfair attack on a safe and healthy product.

For example, ammonia compounds are used as leavening agents in baked goods and as an acidity controller in cheese and sometimes chocolate.

"Ammonia's not an unusual product to find added to food," Gary Acuff, director of Texas A&M University's Center for Food Safety, told a recent press conference hosted by Beef Products Inc. "We use ammonia in all kinds of foods in the food industry."

Kraft Foods Inc, whose brands include Chips Ahoy cookies and Velveeta cheese, is one company that uses very small amounts of ammonium compounds in some of its products. It declined to specify which products.

Read more of this hilarity in the Reuters article.



No comments:

Post a Comment