# Meat glue



## Jim (Mar 16, 2011)

Here is an Australian expose on the misuse of meat glue to defraud the public.

I know there are many positive uses for this product what do you use it for? 


http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/8989315/consumer/meat-glue


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## FryBoy (Mar 16, 2011)

Outrageous! Please tell me that the USDA bans this crap.


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## Dave Martell (Mar 16, 2011)

Holy crap! I never heard of this before.


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## chazmtb (Mar 16, 2011)

Yikes,

I am wondering if I buy vac packs from places like Restaurant Depot, will I get glued together meats. If they have USDA stamp on the pack, should I be OK?


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## so_sleepy (Mar 16, 2011)

Wylie Dufresne is a big fan of the creative use of transglutaminase:
http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010/11/wylie-dufresne-meat-glue-mania.html

I always assumed this or a similar product is used to make deli meats like turkey into blocks suitable for slicing.


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## Audi's or knives (Mar 17, 2011)

Seems FDA is ok with TG, I am assuming it has to be stated on the labeling. Here's a link to a give people an idea how it is used commercially. Part of the reason I try to purchase my meats straight from local farms or stores that source from them, serves the purpose of eliminating this type of stuff and supports the local economy.

http://cookingbuddies.com/pdf/ActivaGenInfo.pdf


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## ThEoRy (Mar 17, 2011)

Using it for creative culinary purposes is fine. Using it for deceiving unsuspecting consumers into purchasing a chopped up reformed piece of meat at premium prices is not.


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## Tristan (Mar 17, 2011)

This thread is the most disturbing and sick thing I've read on any kitchen forum. 

Damn I need to check if this is allowed locally


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## Eamon Burke (Mar 18, 2011)

I am not surprised by this at all.

With the state of food in America(and most of the world, but especially America) today, if you didn't kill it, you can't expect it to be what it says it is.

I work in an institutional environment and we have a supplier hawking TVP Beef and "brine injected" chicken(they are so plumped with water that if you speed thaw them, they are about 1/2 size), and ball tips so big they take up my entire cutting board, proudly advertising that they rectally electrocute the cattle to tenderize the beef and "add aged flavor".

You may think "Well, that should kill people!" It can, and it does. I've sold ciggarettes, gasoline, beer, industrial lawn chemicals, and the like, but here in this cafeteria I feel like I am working to change a place designed to kill people.

/soapbox

Support local business.


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## Dave Martell (Mar 18, 2011)

johndoughy said:


> ....proudly advertising that they rectally electrocute the cattle to tenderize the beef and "add aged flavor"




I KNOW I didn't just read that....if I did I would have to self-implode on myself and I can't do that today.


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## Tristan (Mar 18, 2011)

Great. They always say that you should never say "things can't possibly get worse".

If this is true, how do I check that my cows aren't undergoing such things? I can't ask my butcher if my meat was anally probed.

I hate unnecessary torture happening to my food. As though killing them to eat them wasn't bad enough.


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## deker (Mar 18, 2011)

I have to say that I don't really have an issue with the enzyme itself (yet...I'll have to do more reading), but any time a company does dishonest **** it bothers me. I could see some fun uses for the stuff (beefturduckork steak anybody?  ), but you'd have to be being up front about it IMO.

-d


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## Craig (Mar 18, 2011)

Tristan said:


> Great. They always say that you should never say "things can't possibly get worse".
> 
> If this is true, how do I check that my cows aren't undergoing such things? I can't ask my butcher if my meat was anally probed.
> 
> I hate unnecessary torture happening to my food. As though killing them to eat them wasn't bad enough.


 
Why can't you ask your butcher if your meat was anally probed? Part of his job is knowing stuff like that.

Getting ethical or natural or generally speaking meat that works for you is something that has different solutions everywhere. Part of it is it depends on the consumer. Some people just don't want additives in their meat for health reasons, some people just want the animals to be raised with respect and treated well, some are a mix of both. The best solution is probably to get to know a farmer, but that's not very practical for many. Really the only way to go about it is to get to know your butcher, and if he can't reassure you that the meat you're buying is what you want, get a new butcher.

I also strongly recommend doing a bit of reading on the subject. A few excellent books cover this sort of stuff, I liked The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan, but a bunch of other titles like Food Inc or The End of Food are pretty decent as well.

For me, the solution to the good meat problem ended in a butcher shop that's actually an outlet for a bunch of regional Mennonite farms. There's a pretty big Mennonite community within 50-100 kilometers of Toronto, and they raise their livestock in ways that appeal to me for religious/social reasons. Plus it's really close to my house, bonus.


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## deker (Mar 18, 2011)

Ok, so is it bad that all day I was constructing a "quilted steak" in my head after reading this? There's a part of me that wants to just chunk up some beef, chicken, pork, and a few other meats, mix them up with some meat glue and cut it into crazysteaks.....Smoke 'em or sous vide maybe...I dunno, I can't get this out of my head 

-d


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## Dave Martell (Mar 18, 2011)

deker said:


> Ok, so is it bad that all day I was constructing a "quilted steak" in my head after reading this? There's a part of me that wants to just chunk up some beef, chicken, pork, and a few other meats, mix them up with some meat glue and cut it into crazysteaks.....Smoke 'em or sous vide maybe...I dunno, I can't get this out of my head
> 
> -d


 
Serve it to some guests and make them guess what they're eating.


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## Eamon Burke (Mar 19, 2011)

lol you sound like those epic mealtime guys!

The only way, Tristan, is to buy locally. It isn't as cheap, but that is America's secret to success. We only spend like 15% of our incomes on food, whereas most countries spend about 45%. We live in big houses, drive big cars, and eat garbage. But if you get your meat from a local source, typically they are already personally invested in providing humane and healthy food, but you can always just go look for yourself!


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## FryBoy (Mar 19, 2011)

Query: How could you take random chunks of beef, dump some extract of pig-blood glue on them, roll them up in plastic, refrigerate them for 24 hours, then slice them into something that an experienced meat eater would think is tenderloin? Wouldn't the grain of the meat be going every which way? Wouldn't it still be as tough as the original chunks of meat? Or does the glue somehow alter the texture of the meat itself? Besides, it might actually have flavor, giving away the fact that it's not real tenderloin.


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## rysara (Mar 23, 2011)

I hate misleading consumers. But that is the nature of the beast. It's sad to say but there are many and i mean many restaurants that pull dirty **** just to try to make a buck. It's disgusting and insulting to the people who actually have a passion for culinary arts. 

With that said, meat glue is basically an enzyme. Once this enzyme comes into contact with certain amino acids, basically lysine and glutamine, it forms an adhesive bond with the surfaces much like a glue does. All forms of meat contain more than enough lysine and glutamine to cause this reaction to take place.

I've used meat glue before. It's an amazing product, much like a lot of the other molecular gastronomy magic powders. I've made pasta from shrimp (a la wylie dusfrane), casing-less and egg-less sausage, deboned a whole chicken except for one drummette and pressed it all together so you get all white and dark meat mixed together. The possiblities are endless, but you really have to make sure that you are cooking the products with the same temperature guidelines as if the protein was solid. It's the reason why meat glue and sous vide go hand in hand some times.


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## Citizen Snips (Mar 24, 2011)

here is the thing about this. selling someone scraps as a tenderloin cut is wrong and its stealing. people shouldnt have to be taken advantage of because of their ignorance.

that said, this video is a classic example of news making something completely outrageous out of something not a big deal. many of the finer restaurants use meat adhesives. the part about not breathing it in because its dangerous stuff is just silly. dusfrane at WD-50 and other chefs use this all the time for multiple applications. i use a similar product where i work called activa rm. it acts the same way. so if we break down a goat and have two small tenderloins that weigh out to 4oz, we can turn them into an 8oz portion. the same can be done with halibut cheeks and other under-weight portions. 

all in all, i dont care to use all this new age fancy crap that chefs pay top dollar to add to their organic ingredients which also cost more just to look like the guys at moto, wd-50, and *choke* iron chef america, but some things have some practical uses. i dont use it at home but believe that its one of the few acceptable products in a professional environment. the problem i have with the video is someone saying that its a tenderloin cut when its scraps glued together. that is wrong.


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## rockbox (May 5, 2011)

Have any of you guys used this stuff? I have to say it totally intrigues me and scares me at the same time. I want to try the stuff out but I'm not sure how I would feel if a restaurant fed me meat that was glued together. Does anyone want to send me a few ounce so I don't have spend a 100 bucks just to satisfy my curiosity?


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## MadMel (May 6, 2011)

I used it once when we had a chef come in for his showcase menu. Glued slices of pork loin and belly together. Does not affect the taste. It's something like geletin imo


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## crizq0 (Jun 18, 2011)

Saw an interesting video on meat glue (transglutaminase). What do you guys think of meat glue? Use them? Would you guys eat a steak that was glued together?

I read in a cookbook, this one chef would take some of the fat trimmings from a dry-aged ribeye or ny steak and meat glue them to a hanger steak. So when cooked, it gives this very tasty steak that was being basted by the fat.

[video=youtube;Ss_b-dRIOOg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss_b-dRIOOg&feature=player_embedded[/video]


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## BraisedorStewed (Jun 18, 2011)

Yes. Saw that report a few weeks ago. Big crock of s**t sensationalism and yellow journalism. People who are responsible for this kind of garbage reporting are scum and should be rousted and ridiculed by their peers who are doing real reporting.
I have "glued" and eaten tons of "glued" meat. I have plenty to say on the subject but no time now..... Go read the recent post http://www.cookingissues.com, they pretty much hit the nail on the head I think.


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## crizq0 (Jun 18, 2011)

Whoops! Thanks for moving my post. Didn't realize there was already a thread on this. I'll search it before I start a new post. :thumbsup:


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## BraisedorStewed (Jun 18, 2011)

rockbox said:


> Have any of you guys used this stuff? I have to say it totally intrigues me and scares me at the same time. I want to try the stuff out but I'm not sure how I would feel if a restaurant fed me meat that was glued together. Does anyone want to send me a few ounce so I don't have spend a 100 bucks just to satisfy my curiosity?


 
If no one here has a small quantity to sell you check here http://www.cookingissues.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=232&sid=5e17090572d13b9895d73eb36ac57ed9


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## Eamon Burke (Jun 19, 2011)

BraisedorStewed said:


> If no one here has a small quantity to sell you check here http://www.cookingissues.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=232&sid=5e17090572d13b9895d73eb36ac57ed9


 
Holy crap that blog is amazing. :notworthy:

Any friend of Harold McGee's is a role model of mine.


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## Brad Gibson (Jul 9, 2013)

activia. I stick steaks together with this stuff for fun. I wouldnt serve dismembered steaks stuck together to a paying customer though.


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## jared08 (Jul 9, 2013)

Ive used it to make chicken sausage, gluing together pig fat backs and curing them, a few random things here and there..


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## JCHine (Jul 13, 2013)

Can do some really interesting things with meat glue such as binderless pates, novel textural effects and best of all bacon wraps that does not fall off when you fry them...

Rabbit hind legs wrapped in prosciutto secured with MG, vac pack then let bind for 4 hours, sous vide for an hour and half @64c then let cool. Pan fry to crisp.


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## LeftGB (Jul 13, 2013)

We use it often in the restaurant I work in, from gluing fish to steak to basically it bonds any protein together. With fish it's kind of rough, it produces a thick membrane in the middle that doesn't allow the fish to cook properly, but for meat it's money. We bone out the thigh of a rabbit leg and stuff it then glue it shut and cook it sous vied. we also debone a lamb leg seam and separate it all out and then glue it together to make one big steak out of the super flavorful leg.


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## GeneH (Jul 13, 2013)

Eamon Burke said:


> ...proudly advertising that they rectally electrocute the cattle to tenderize the beef and "add aged flavor"./soapbox Support local business.



*shudder* There are reasons why I keep my head in the sand. I love meat, but the reality of this might just turn me into a veggi...


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## heirkb (Jul 13, 2013)

GeneH said:


> *shudder* There are reasons why I keep my head in the sand. I love meat, but the reality of this might just turn me into a veggi...



Or a more responsible meat eater...it is possible and better for your health (didn't a study just come out about how it may not even be the fats in red meat, but other chemicals present in all red meat--regardless of quality/ethical-ness--that may be correlated with heart disease?).

And just so I'm not totally off-topic, here's a chicken-beef steak from the blog playing with fire and water: http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com/photos/chicken_beef_steak/beef-chicken-psp.html


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## ChuckTheButcher (Jul 13, 2013)

I have used meat glue, such as activa, many times. It's okay for some things but find it is over rated and way over used. Also it does tend to change the texture a little. You would be amazed how often you eat it though. Things like pressed hams. A lot of meat companies put terres major's through an extruder and sell it as filet. They don't even try to hide it. I have toured several meat distributors who have bragged about this.


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