History of All-Russian Deception ".

The topic of the next investigation by our editorial office was the injection procedure - the introduction through the needles of a special solution that increases the meat in volume.

The translucent, whitish liquid for pumping meat shown on NTV made a depressing impression on us, and for psychological support we turned to the deputy general director of one of the largest domestic companies producing the very same mixtures for injection, Alexei Izmailov.

Aleksey reassured us, saying that "meat processing is one of the most tightly controlled by the state branches of the food industry, and if something in the components of the solution was dangerous, it would have been banned long ago."

Do you yourself eat meat pumped up with such a solution?

Certainly. You will understand that unspiked meat can now only be obtained from a grandmother in the village. Everything else, including the markets, is already pumped up. Both domestically produced and imported.

What is included in this solution?

What you call “solution” is correctly called brine. Meat is injected into it, not only for it to increase in volume. More precisely, not so much for this. This mixture has two sides - technological and economic.

From the technological point of view, brine is a complex complex of additives, each of which has its own purpose. For example, the composition of a typical brine used to inject meat: stabilizers (E 450, E 451), a gelling agent (E 407), dextrose, an enhancer of taste and aroma (E 621), an antioxidant (E 301), a thickener (E 415), extracts spices.

Stabilizers are phosphates that stabilize the PH (acidity level). For meat, this parameter varies greatly from batch to batch, since it strongly depends on what the cows and pigs ate in the last weeks of their lives. If the acidity is not stabilized, the meat will be extremely dry and will not retain moisture.

The gelling agent is the same carrageenan, an extract from seaweed. Everyone has probably come across the fact that algae, which seem large and dense in the water, dry up and become almost weightless when they hit the land. This property is used here - one part of carrageenan powder can take 25-40 parts of water, forming a gel. This additive is added to the brine composition so that the product has an elastic, “rubbery” consistency.

Dextrose is the same as glucose, sugar. Added in small amounts for flavor.

The enhancer of taste and aroma is monosodium glutamate. Well, what it is for is quite understandable.

Antioxidant - introduced so that the meat does not lose color and is stored longer.
The thickener - usually guar gum (a powder made from the fruit of the guar tree found in India) - has similar properties to carrageenans and is used in diapers and panty liners. It is added to improve consistency and additional moisture binding.

Spice Extracts - Natural concentrated extracts are added to add flavor. As an antioxidant, ordinary ascorbic acid or its derivatives, sodium ascorbate, are used.

This is what concerns the technological side of the issue. I repeat: with the help of these additives, we form the consistency of the meat product, juiciness, color and taste.

Well, the economic side is that some of these additives allow you to keep the water pumped into the meat. The cost price naturally depends on the amount of this water and, as a consequence, the price of the product. Technologists at enterprises do not inject products out of natural anger of character, but for one simple reason - if this is not done, then, firstly, the meat will be dry and bland and in a couple of days it will acquire a characteristic windy color. Well, and secondly, because it will be very expensive and not every consumer will be able to call him. So this is a forced measure, for which we ourselves vote with our wallets.

And how much water is added to the meat?

If we take the amount of added moisture, you can make the following gradation (not for meat, but for the finished product - a delicacy product such as ham or carbonade):
Expensive "delicacy" (beef, pork) - moisture is injected up to 30% of the mass of meat.
Middle segment - 35-50% of meat mass

Low-end segment - 60-80% moisture is introduced.
Due to the peculiarities of the structure of poultry meat, it is impossible to inject more than 25-30% of moisture into chicken delicacies.
Chopped hams in a polyamide casing can be filled with more than 80% water.
This is the kind of economy.

That is, when buying products from the budget segment, as you called it, people get more water and less nutrients with them, less amino acids, vitamins, what a person actually eats meat for?

As a marketer with many years of experience, I want to tell you this: amino acids and vitamins in meat are eaten only by bodybuilders and other extreme radicals. A normal person eats meat in order to feel the taste of meat, to get the feeling of chewing meat, to feel the feeling of satiety and to realize the fact that he has eaten meat. And how much there is something - water or protein, he does not really care. If you count in grams of protein per ruble, then it turns out about the same what to eat - better and more expensive or cheaper but with water. People are quite aware of this, but they themselves are playing this game, precisely because they expect from food what I said, and not amino acids with proteins.

following in the footsteps of the sensational project of the NTV channel
"Meat. History of All-Russian Deception ". The topic of the next investigation by our editorial office was the injection procedure - the introduction through the needles of a special solution that increases the meat in volume.

The translucent, whitish liquid for pumping meat shown on NTV made a depressing impression on us, and for psychological support we turned to the deputy general director of one of the largest domestic companies producing the very same mixtures for injection, Alexei Izmailov.

Aleksey reassured us, saying that "meat processing is one of the most tightly controlled by the state branches of the food industry, and if something in the components of the solution was dangerous, it would have been banned long ago."

Do you yourself eat meat pumped up with such a solution?

Certainly. You will understand that unspiked meat can now only be obtained from a grandmother in the village. Everything else, including the markets, is already pumped up. Both domestically produced and imported.

What is included in this solution?

What you call “solution” is correctly called brine. Meat is injected into it, not only for it to increase in volume. More precisely, not so much for this. This mixture has two sides - technological and economic.

From the technological point of view, brine is a complex complex of additives, each of which has its own purpose. For example, the composition of a typical brine used to inject meat: stabilizers (E 450, E 451), a gelling agent (E 407), dextrose, an enhancer of taste and aroma (E 621), an antioxidant (E 301), a thickener (E 415), extracts spices.

Stabilizers are phosphates that stabilize the PH (acidity level). For meat, this parameter varies greatly from batch to batch, since it strongly depends on what the cows and pigs ate in the last weeks of their lives. If the acidity is not stabilized, the meat will be extremely dry and will not retain moisture.

The gelling agent is the same carrageenan, an extract from seaweed. Everyone has probably come across the fact that algae, which seem large and dense in the water, dry up and become almost weightless when they hit the land. This property is used here - one part of carrageenan powder can take 25-40 parts of water, forming a gel. This additive is added to the brine composition so that the product has an elastic, “rubbery” consistency.

Dextrose is the same as glucose, sugar. Added in small amounts for flavor.
The enhancer of taste and aroma is monosodium glutamate. Well, what it is for is quite understandable.
Antioxidant - introduced so that the meat does not lose color and is stored longer.
The thickener - usually guar gum (a powder made from the fruit of the guar tree found in India) - has similar properties to carrageenans and is used in diapers and panty liners. It is added to improve consistency and additional moisture binding.

Spice Extracts - Natural concentrated extracts are added to add flavor. As an antioxidant, ordinary ascorbic acid or its derivatives, sodium ascorbate, are used.

This is what concerns the technological side of the issue. I repeat: with the help of these additives, we form the consistency of the meat product, juiciness, color and taste.

Well, the economic side is that some of these additives allow you to keep the water pumped into the meat. The cost price naturally depends on the amount of this water and, as a consequence, the price of the product. Technologists at enterprises do not inject products out of natural anger of character, but for one simple reason - if this is not done, then, firstly, the meat will be dry and bland and in a couple of days it will acquire a characteristic windy color. Well, and secondly, because it will be very expensive and not every consumer will be able to call him. So this is a forced measure, for which we ourselves vote with our wallets.

And how much water is added to the meat?

If we take the amount of added moisture, you can make the following gradation (not for meat, but for the finished product - a delicacy product such as ham or carbonade):
Expensive "delicacy" (beef, pork) - moisture is injected up to 30% of the mass of meat.
Middle segment - 35-50% of meat mass
Low-end segment - 60-80% moisture is introduced.
Due to the peculiarities of the structure of poultry meat, it is impossible to inject more than 25-30% of moisture into chicken delicacies.
Chopped hams in a polyamide casing can be filled with more than 80% water.
This is the kind of economy.

That is, when buying products from the budget segment, as you called it, people get more water and less nutrients with them, less amino acids, vitamins, what a person actually eats meat for?

As a marketer with many years of experience, I want to tell you this: amino acids and vitamins in meat are eaten only by bodybuilders and other extreme radicals. A normal person eats meat in order to feel the taste of meat, to get the feeling of chewing meat, to feel the feeling of satiety and to realize the fact that he has eaten meat. And how much there is something - water or protein, he does not really care. If you count in grams of protein per ruble, then it turns out about the same what to eat - better and more expensive or cheaper but with water. People are quite aware of this, but they themselves are playing this game, precisely because they expect from food what I said, and not amino acids with proteins.

It will be great if you write a comment.

The sentimental topic of cheating consumers does not bother anyone except the consumers themselves - this, unfortunately, is an indisputable fact. Especially familiar with him are the inhabitants of large cities, flooded with supermarkets and spontaneous markets. But, as the saying goes, "The rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves," and if there is no way to go somewhere to Tmutarakan, to have a cow and a vegetable garden, then you need to arm yourself with the knowledge of what, where and how they are forged. In this article, we will reveal the whole truth about meat.

Throughout the year, the average Russian consumes up to 70 kilograms of meat. This is almost half what the "average" European eats. However, if we determine what exactly this dubious product is made of, it turns out that we eat half as much meat as we think. In fact, we buy a kilogram of an appetizing tenderloin, but in reality we get a pound of meat and half a liter of liquid of unknown origin.

It will be interesting for you to immediately familiarize yourself with:

As you know, after slaughter, some time must pass for the meat to become more tender. In a couple of days the blood drains and the muscles relax, only this way the veal or pork chops will be soft and tender. But time is money, and meat processing plants, not wanting to lose them, pump the carcasses with a chemical solution, which increases the weight and accelerates the maturation of meat. And for this solution we pay our hard-earned money. Manufacturers are so keen on the process of "stuffing" that a piglet that weighed 100 kg during its life, after slaughter, having lost its blood, bones and entrails, weighs 110 kg. But what exactly do we put into our mouth along with a fragrant and mouth-watering piece of steak?

In fact, now you simply cannot find pure meat. Everyone and everywhere, from shops to markets, inject the product, only the composition and dosage differ. Beef, pork, lamb and poultry are diligently pumped with thickeners (carrageenan and gum) and soybean extract. The amount of injected solution directly depends on the structure of the meat. The leader is beef, due to the dense fibrous structure of the pulp, the weight of beef tenderloin can be increased by almost 80%. Pork is in second place in terms of water and additives - the original piece becomes about half heavier (by 50%). Then comes the bird - our beloved ryaba "swells" by 40%, and most of it goes to the legs.

The manufacturers claim that the solutions they use do not harm health in any way, and serve an exclusively good purpose - to preserve the presentation, to make the meat soft and juicy. In addition, we, poor buyers, cannot afford real, unspiked meat at all, since the cost of natural products will simply go off scale.

The truth about frozen and defrosted meat

Directly depends on the method of freezing. Incorrectly frozen meat loses almost all its beneficial properties. Whereas fresh food and quick frozen food are not too different. Nutritionists assure that at low temperatures and sharp freezing all vitamins, enzymes and trace elements are not destroyed.

Repeated freezing is also detrimental to meat. Meat that has been thawed and then re-frozen has a low biological value. Crystals formed during repeated freezing destroy amino acids and all nutrients. Such meat also differs in taste, moreover, it can be simply hazardous to health.

Knowing how to properly defrost tenderloin is very important. Defrosting in a microwave oven, at room temperature or under running water destroys the fibers and, accordingly, loses all nutritional value. Avoid large temperature differences. After removing the meat from the freezer, place it in the refrigerator for several hours until it is completely thawed, and only then start cooking.

An ordinary buyer cannot determine re-frozen meat by eye. But this is clearly visible when defrosting. If the meat has acquired a dark brown color, and water and blood ooze from the piece, most likely it has already been repeatedly placed in the freezer.

This week, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, reported that eating 50 grams of processed meat daily increases the risk of bowel cancer by 18%. According to the results of scientific work, the development of oncological diseases is influenced not by the meat itself, but by the substances used in its processing into sausage or bacon. Carcinogens can also be released when meat is cooked over an open fire at high temperatures. Without denying that red meat is rich in nutrients (iron, zinc and vitamin B12), IARC experts say the risk of cancer increases with the amount of processed meat eaten.

And it's not just the risk of getting cancer, in the modern world it's no longer a secret for anyone that animals are bred for meat on a shocking scale, and so that they grow faster and give more meat or lard or the so popular bacon, livestock breeders go to very harmful our health measures.

Instead of a kilogram of, for example, pork, we buy half a kilogram of meat and half a liter of chemicals.

Almost half of the meat that is sold in markets and in stores belongs to animals of average

kind. The fact is that the biggest gain is given not by females, not males, but something in between. Such

the creature can be raised if the piglet is given a little female sex hormones with food, and

on the contrary, male pigs. Animals grow faster, actively build muscle mass. TO

For example, an ordinary piglet grows into an adult pig in a year.

And if fed with hormones, he will mature in seven months. And time is money. Therefore, hormones are used in many

modern farms. True, the farmers themselves do not eat such meat. They know that hormones

enter the body and begin to act on us. Scientists claim - the cause of obesity in

children and adolescents - modern meat pumped with hormones. The experts told the authors how

distinguish between hormonal meat when buying.

Steamed meat. Many people think that it is the tastiest and most tender. In fact, right after the slaughter

you cannot cook meat. It's tough. The meat must lie down for at least two days for the blood to drain and

the muscles relaxed. But time is money. At some meat processing plants, the process is accelerated -

"ripeners" are injected into the meat. Plus, after the injections, the piece of meat becomes almost doubled

heavier. This means - more expensive. By law, sprinkled beef and pork are no longer meat, but

semifinished. But no one hides this. The meat departments sell escalope, entrecote, pork or

roast beef. There is no word meat on the price tags. It is profitable to produce such semi-finished products. That's why

that in the meat you can pump as much brine and ripeners as you like.

Farm meat. Many people think that it is always fresh and without chemicals. That is why pork and

beef is often bought from illegal markets. This meat is really fresh. No animals

injected with hormones, pieces of meat are not pumped with polyphosphates. The problem is different. This pork and

no one checks the beef. What contaminated the meat is unknown.

We are all different people, there are kind and compassionate, there are indifferent and selfish, but all these people want to live long and keep their health. In this case, at least for the health of your own and your loved ones, you should give up sausages, sausages, and other derived meat products and, of course, significantly reduce the consumption of meat in your diet.

And it is important to remember: “I heard the cry of my dying father - his body was damaged by cancer, which killed him. And I realized that I heard this cry before ... East, and the cry of the Kitiha mother calling out to her cub, who at that time is dying because of the exploding in her brain a Japanese harpoon. Their cry was my father's cry. I found that when we suffer, we suffer the same way. And in ability the suffering of animals, the suffering of a dog is equal to the suffering of a pig, the suffering of a bear ... and the suffering of a boy. Meat is the new asbestos - more deadly than tobacco. "Philip Wallen.