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Comment by Ellen on April 23, 2012 at 11:47am

What do they do with the feathers?!

I have a brother that worked at Maple Leaf Farms, large duck processor, and they sold the down to down comforter industries.

Turkey, chicken feathers are turned into.........feather meal, that's right, feathers are turned into a food additive for turkeys, chickens, ruminants. Some are  also turned into  fertilizer.

Unprocessed feathers are high in CP, but are highly indigestible. The primary protein that is found associated with feathers is keratin, which contains a high amounts of cystine (approximately 10%) the cross-linking of cystine is why the CP fraction of feathers is highly indigestible. When moist heat is applied at elevated temperatures the cross linkages between the cystine's are cleaved and the CP becomes readily digestible. Normally feathers are processed by cooking them in a pressurized chamber at 30 to 45 pounds/square/inch for 30 to 60 minutes and the resultant CP digestibility will be in excess of 75 % and normally runs between 80 to 85 %. After cooking the resultant meal is dried and ground. It has been observed that feather meal is unpalatable in some feeding applications, which seems to be truer in applications with monogastric than with ruminant.

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAP/FRG/AFRIS/Data/326.HTM

 

So, we have been eating feathers also it seems, it is  obvious, whatever turkey, chickens, ruminants, that we consume; eat, we eat.

It all comes down again to these huge meat processors squeezing every dollar they can get out of by-products, including feathers, knowing that  feather meal, fertilizer: is now a  previously unrecognized route for reentry into the food supply of multiple pharmaceuticals, and personal care products (PPCPs).......who woulda thunk....feathers.

Antimicrobials used in poultry production have the potential to bioaccumulate in poultry feathers but available data are scarce. Following poultry slaughter, feathers are converted by rendering into feather meal and sold as fertilizer and animal feed, thereby providing a potential pathway for reentry of drugs into the human food supply. We analyzed feather meal (n = 12 samples) for 59 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) using EPA method 1694 employing liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). All samples tested positive and six classes of antimicrobials were detected, with a range of two to ten antimicrobials per sample. Caffeine and acetaminophen were detected in 10 of 12 samples. A number of PPCPs were determined to be heat labile during laboratory simulation of the rendering process. Growth of wild-type E. coli in MacConkey agar was inhibited by sterilized feather meal (p = 0.01) and by the antimicrobial enrofloxacin (p < 0.0001) at levels found in feather meal. Growth of a drug-resistant E. coli strain was not inhibited by sterilized feather meal or enrofloxacin. This is the first study to detect antimicrobial residues in feather meal. Initial results suggest that more studies are needed to better understand potential  risks posed to consumers by drug residues in feather meal.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203970e

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/03/Chicken-Feathers-Carry-D...

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2012/04/waste_not_want_not_poultr...

 

Comment by Ellen on April 16, 2012 at 2:12pm

White slime????......never heard of that one! Lean Finely Textured Beef	Mechanically Separated Meat	Advanced Meat Recovery
What does it look like?
What else is it called?                                  "Pink slime," coined by former USDA microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein in 2002. "White slime," in the popular press.
What is it?         Processed beef trimmings and recovered materials from meat carcasses, like fat and connective tissue. A "paste-like and batter-like meat product"  made from mechanically removing meat from animal bones.                  Pieces of meat that have been scraped, shaved, or pressed off the bone by special machinery.
How is it made?            Trimmings are heated to 100°F and spun inside a centrifuge to separate the meat from the fat. After the fat is removed, the remaining beef bits are treated with ammonia hydroxide to kill bacteria such as E. coli or salmonella. They are then ground up, frozen into blocks and added to other beef products. Carcasses are forced through "a sieve or similar device under high pressure to separate bone fro... The remaining fragments (the USDA limits how many bits of bone are acceptable) are ground up into a paste and added to other processed meats. Without grinding, crushing or pulverizing the bone itself, a machine removes edible tissue from beef and pork bones. If the resulting bits have more than 150 mg of calcium per 100 grams (indicating the presence of bones) they must be labeled "mechanically separated" meat.
Where is it found?                   burgers meatloaf bologna hot dogs taco filling meatballs
How is it labeled?                    Some companies may soon include "lean finely textured beef" on their product labels, and Congress recently introduced a bill to require labeling. Right now the USDA does not require any disclosure, because the product is considered the same as beef. Manufacturers must always label "mechanically separated" pork, chicken or turkey on the ingredients list. According to the American Meat Institute, the product is no longer typically used in chicken nuggets (McDonald's has repeatedly claimed that its chicken nuggets only contain chicken breast meat).                     Is labeled the same way as any other meat – such as "beef" or "ground pork."
Health concerns?                        Trimmings are typically collected from more bacteria-prone parts of the cow, but treatment with ammonia is supposed to kill pathogens. In 2009 some beef products tested positive for E. coli and salmonella, but the USDA says it has modified inspection processes since then to address safety concerns. The USDA continues to "affirm the safety of Lean Finely Textured Beef product for all con... Mechanically separated beef was prohibited for use as human food in 2004 due to concerns that spinal tissue (potentially carrying mad cow disease) could get mixed into the meat. Mechanically separated poultry and pork are still allowed. The USDA requires that the spinal cord be removed before processing the neck bones and backbones, so that pieces do not get mixed into the meat.

Sources: USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, The American Meat Institute

Comment by Ellen on April 8, 2012 at 7:42pm

Uh oh......What's even grosser than pink slime?

New slaughterhouse rules. While Vilsack and  his food-safety lieutenant shuck and jive for an ailing meat industry titan, their agency is proposing a radical  overhaul to the way poultry slaughterhouses are inspected—one that will  significantly benefit the industry while potentially increasing  the risk to consumers from antibiotic-resistant  bacteria. In the nation's  industrial-scale poultry slaughterhouses, a USDA inspector currently  looks at each bird emerging from the kill line for obvious defects. Any bird that's  obviously flawed gets pulled, but it's  only humanly possible for an inspector to check out 35 birds per  minute—one every 1.7 seconds. That has been a limiting  factor in the speed at which "kill lines" can operate.

Under the proposed new system, those  USDA inspectors would be sent packing, and employees of the slaughterhouse would take over the job. To check up on them, the USDA "samples between 20 to  80 birds per slaughter line during an eight-hour shift to check for  defects missed by company employees," FWW reports. But here's the catch:  The new rules would likely allow the line speed to ramp up to "upwards  of 200 birds per minute"—or 3 per second. So the USDA would now be  inspecting a tiny fraction of the birds that end up on people's plates.

Company  employees miss many defects in poultry carcasses. The inspection  category that had the highest error rate was 'Other Consumer Protection  4' for dressing defects such as feathers, lungs, oil glands, trachea and  bile still on the carcass. The average error rate for this category in  the chicken slaughter facilities was 64 percent and 87 percent in turkey  slaughter facilities. In one turkey slaughter facility, nearly 100  percent of samples found this category of defect.

It gets worse.....

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/pink-slime-vilsack-USDA...

Comment by Ellen on March 11, 2012 at 5:28pm

Knew something  was just not right with the ground beef, turkey many years ago from Krogers, etc.  Just the consistentcy was off, really pasty, horrible taste. Stopped  buying it. Of course most are looking for the cheapest cuts, or ground, fast food, and CONVENIENCE. I can remember the days when there was an actual butcher at Krogers, etc.,  the meat dept' smelled like, well.....meat, and the trimmings, bones went to the dogs. If we can just buck the status quo in Fort Wayne to allow us to raise backyard chickens.....maybe even a turkey, and only deal with the local butchers. 

Comment by Robert on March 11, 2012 at 12:16am

http://theintelhub.com/2012/03/09/from-road-salt-to-pink-goo-whats-...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM6PAJ45t-A

Comment by Ellen on March 10, 2012 at 8:21pm

MST not qualified as meat, but being consumed as such by the uninformed.  Mechanically separated turkey (MST) is a low-cost material currently used in cured products such as hot dogs and bologna at levels approaching 50% of the product weight. Mechanically separated turkey is typically prepared from necks, backs or frames that are passed through a sieve under high pressure and turned into a paste. (5). Burnt flavors and residual bone fragments in MST have been reduced to negligible levels through the use of temperature control and improved sieving during recovery of mechanically separated turkey from necks and frames.

Comment by Ellen on March 10, 2012 at 7:08pm

Ok, ok this is what Snopes has to say about 'pink slime' Rumor? Confusion?  Of course this info is supplied by the USDA, and the American Meat Institute 

http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/msm.asp

Comment by John Marks on March 10, 2012 at 6:52am

Your comment isconfusing

Comment by Ellen on March 9, 2012 at 5:23pm

Using up offal......Mechanically Separated Poultry (MSP) Mechanically separated poultry is a paste-like and batter-like poultry product produced by forcing bones, with attached edible tissue, through a sieve or similar device under high pressure to separate bone from the edible tissue. Mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since the late 1960's. In 1995, a final rule on mechanically separated poultry said it was safe and could be used without restrictions. However, it must be labeled as "mechanically separated chicken or turkey" in the product's ingredients statement. The final rule became effective November 4, 1996. Hot dogs can contain any amount of mechanically separated chicken or turkey.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Hot_Dogs/index.asp

Are we eating 'pink slime' containing ammonium hydroxide from the poultry industry, similar to the beef industry?

Sarah Prochaska, a registered dietitian at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, said that ammonium hydroxide is widely used in the U.S. food industry but that consumers may not be able to know what products include it because the USDA considers it a component in a production procedure — separating scrap meat — and not an ingredient that must be listed on food labels.

"It's a process, from what I understand, called 'mechanically separated meat' or 'meat product,'" Prochaska told NBC http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/31/10282876-mcdonalds-dro...

Comment by Ellen on February 7, 2012 at 4:44pm

Care to elaborate John,  can you come up with  a counterpoint?   ;) 

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