Can we talk about mechanically separated meat

[Pheasantlysurprised]

and connective tissue, and meat slurry?
It appears to be a huuuuge industry.
Im really curious about this.
I only eat a bit of (from raw) cooked chicken or mackerel, so possibly not in the market for slurry, but what food is it going into?

I was reading about traditional world foods on wiki and then unwittingly stumbled down this weird hole, it all sounds pretty ghastly, but where is it and what do you think?
Do you partake?

@Pheasantlysurprised

im wondering about the brand 'naked', they make pork products without additives/nitrates. anyone know?

I eat their bacon rashers and their very nice. I also buy heck sausages and Tesco Finest Lincolnshire ones. Those are the only brands I'll eat, so I hope their ok.

Once tried a Richmond sausage when I first moved here thinking they were a big well known brand. Truly vile things! Ugh 😝

Tinned hotdog sausages contain "mechanical retrieved meat". I don't eat hotdogs.

@Suzi888 I make my own sausages and faggots.

@TroysMammy I have enough trouble with beans on toast lol but I hadn’t thought of making my own. DD loves sausage!

but is MSM the reason for bad welfare practices? If they are a by product then this issue is already in the farming itself. Unfortunately a lot of veggie/vegan concoctions and substitutes are dripping with hydrogenated oils and other chemicals, it seems we can't win.
I try to eat organic but am aware that even this is a joke much of the time. Mass consumption, globally is the real issue, but obviously I can't suggest a solution.
And I can't question someone who has to feed a family on a budget and expect them to also buy organic. I'm not qualified to say.

Is it just me that isn't bothered by it? I don't mind a crap nugget or hot dog sausage, even though I know how they're made. I like actual meat as well, but the "gross bits" - well as long as it won't make me ill and I don't have to do the process of recovering that meat myself then I don't really see a problem with it. I have much more of an issue with meat that has bits of gristle or fat in it which are unpleasant to eat.

As others said if you think about it the whole concept of eating animals is grim in the first place. We might as well eat as much of the animal as possible so that it died for a worthy reason.

I'm all for lab grown meat as soon as that becomes palatable and affordable.

My ancestors used to fatten a pig, when the time came it was slaughterd and everything was sold for food. They were left with the water the sausages were cooked in + spillings and the blood. So they ate that.
It is wasteful to only use the 'nice bits' and to look down on the rest.

Have you looked at how gelatine is made. I stopped eating haribo after I saw it on TV. I think it was on a program called kill it, cook it, eat it.

@nancybotwinbloom

These are the only veggie hot dogs I will eat. I think they're fab but, I have been a veggie for 14 years so, it is possible I've forgotten what the meat ones tasted like by now.

www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/taifun-tofu-wiener/004163-1697-1698

@BeagleBeagled That is exactly the programme that turned me vegetarian in 2007! Was it was on every night for a week or something like that? And I started off saying "only organic meat for me from now on", but the calf being bolted through the head flipped a switch in me and I've never eaten meat since that day.

I don't see the issue. If you choose to eat meat then all of the animal ought to be used.

hot dogs are actually not called "sausages"

if you look at the tin, you will not find the word

because by UK law, a "sausage" has to contain a certain percentage of meat

and the slurry hot dogs are made of does not meet the definition of "meat"

you can however buy Germant Bockwurst in a jar at Aldi. You will find from the label that they are "sausages" and contain 70% pork.

Tesco sell "Frankfurters" containing 74.5% pork

Both are very suitable for putting in a roll and serving with ketchup and mustard.

Thank you @ZimZamZoom I will give them a go

There used to be a saying that you ate every part of the pig except its oink.
The head was boiled up and made into brawn, the trotters were boiled up and made into some kind of casserole, bones were boiled down to make marrow and fat was used for cooking before sunflower oil etc.

While the current mechanised process is not very pretty, I do think that if you eat meat (and I love meat) then you SHOULD eat every part of the animal. I love kidneys and liver and my dad used to eat tripe (yuck). I think as meat eaters we should be prepared to embrace more of the animal than just the muscle.

With a chicken, I have friends who go to the butchers market and buy a 'whole' chicken which includes feet, hearts, the pre laid eggs yolks, the giblets, etc etc, and they cook with all of them.
The mumsnet chicken could stretch even further....