Carbon Monoxide In Fresh Meat Packaging
The huge meat processing and packaging companies, Hormel and Cargill, went before Congress in Washington, D.C. this week to defend the practice of adding carbon monoxide to the meat packaging process. The process retards the discoloration that can occur as packaged red meat sits in the meat case, unsold.
The idea of adding gases to meat packaging is not new. There are numerous U.S. patents, some many years old for various methods of doing this. The different methods use different gases to accomplish the same thing, keep meat looking pink and fresh, no matter how old it might be. The following quote is from a registered patent that is several years old.
"A process for preserving the color of red meat, which entails contacting the meat with an effective amount of an atmosphere selected from the group consisting of a noble gas, a mixture of noble gases and a mixture containing at least one noble gas and a carrier gas, the noble gas in the mixture with the carrier gas being selected from the group consisting of argon, neon, xenon and krypton and being present in said mixture in an amount of greater than about 10% by volume."
There is very little debate about the reasons the meat companies want to use gases to preserve meat color. The meat industry spends a lot of money re-wrapping fresh meat to preserve its appearance for consumers. The industry also loses a considerable sum every year because of discolored meat that must be discounted in order to sell or sometimes discarded. There is also almost no scientific debate about the safety of adding carbon monoxide or other gases to meat packaging. The process is generally accepted as safe for the consumer. Many scientists and food safety officials claim that meat appearance has never been an accurate indicator of whether red meat is good or not. They say consumers need to watch the dates on the meat packages and use that in their buying decisions. The consumer advocates that are being vocal on the issue seem to have the same concerns that they have about irradiated meat, namely that the meat should be labeled if it is treated by carbon monoxide. The meat companies are strongly opposed to the labeling idea. They feel that consumers will choose not to purchase meat treated with a gas commonly associated with the exhaust system of their cars, even if there is no health risk involved.
Interestingly, a search of the Hormel web site turns up no references to carbon monoxide. A search of the Cargill site does find 2 PDF’s and a web page that mention carbon dioxide, but none of these have anything to do with the packaging of meat. Rather they are related to emissions from their meat packing plants.
The discussion about whether the procedure should be allowed really appears to be falling into two categories. The first, as with most things in Congress, is political. The second involves the perceived deception of consumers.
The political debate is interesting, even though it is cloaked in the idea of food safety. The argument in Congress is between Hormel and Cargill who wants to use the carbon monoxide process and Kalsec Foods, a competitor that wants to use its own patented rosemary extract that colors red meat, making it appear to keep its pink color in the grocery store meat department. Each side has "employed" their state’s congressional representatives to fight for their cause. Re-election campaign contributions galore to the winning congressional representatives!
The deception debate is also heated. One congressman sat at a table piled with year old red meat that still had its "fresh" pink color intact. He stated that "the sole purpose" of the carbon monoxide packaging process is to deceive consumers, making them think that the red meat they are considering purchasing is fresher than it truly is. I think he even used the words "old" and "decayed". The problem with his argument is two-fold. He is a representative from the district that is home to the company wanting to use their own rosemary extract method. Also, in order for meat sellers to sell "old", "decaying", meat, they would have to falsify the dates on the packages of meat. As long as the date labeling system is kept intact as it is, using gas to preserve color should not result in "bad" meat being sold.
Except, perhaps, when you dine out, you can avoid this whole debate by purchasing meat more purposefully in the first place. Buy local if possible. Organic Beef is becoming more available, so consider that alternative. These options are often more expensive, but as more of us reduce our consumption of meat, our average budget for meat purchasing should not really increase.
There are meat preservation processes that might not require congressional hearings that I am more concerned about. Some companies are funding research to determine if injecting chemicals into meat can preserve its shelf life. One group of researchers are trying to determine if protection against pathogens that grow in aging meat might be achieved by packaging meat injected with potassium lactate and sodium diacetate. This is not a method to "preserve" meat in the traditional sense. It is a method that would be used solely to extend the shelf life of "fresh" meat.
With issues like this in the meat industry, I think we have limited choices. One choice is to reduce your meat consumption overall. Another is to buy only organically grown meat. I just bought an organic Thanksgiving turkey. It was 50% more expensive than the conventionally produced birds, but it was humanely raised in a "free range" environment and not injected with hormones or antibiotics. Please consider doing the same for your Thanksgiving dinner.
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This falls into one of those situations where Congress over-complicates things.
The question, as I see it:
“Does the store/industry use means that are not used by or known to the home cook to alter any attribute of the product?”
If yes, then “Is this harmful or risky for the consumer?”
If it is, then the practice should be banned, if it is not, then the product should just be labeled to let the consumer know that this process has been used on this particular package of meat.
Comment by techfun (57 comments.) — November 17, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
Thanks again for a very informative post, wasn’t aware of the carbon monoxide, for some reason I had it in my mind it was carbon dioxide, and I just bought a turkey today, I never even thought of getting an organically grown turkey, I’ll have to look around next time.
Comment by Bob (109 comments.) — November 17, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Hi JD! The answer to your first question would be yes if the meat industry gets its way. That is because, even though the answer to your second point seems to no, the meat industry does not want labeling.
Sarcasm on)They are afraid of the “naive” consumer picking up a package of meat labeled as being preserved by carbon dioxide and saying “what the…, I’m not buying that! (sarcasm off)
This same issue comes up with the irradiation of meat. Even though the actual process may not be dangerous to the consumer eating the meat, the meat industry does not want the radiation word on their packages. In this case also they are afraid of that same “naive” consumer being able to make a choice as to what they want to bring home to their family.
-Will
Comment by Will — November 17, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
Bob: You are not confused about the carbon dioxide. That has been researched and proposed for use in meat sales also. I think it is mainly for use in the environment that unwrapped meat is kept in For example, the meat locker, or the butchers display case.
What I can find on it indicates that carbon dioxide greatly slows down the loss of water from meat. As one of the companies championing the use of CO2 says:
-Will
Comment by Will — November 17, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
The meat industry should have the guts to try educating consumers rather than fearing that consumers aren’t smart enough to understand the meanings of terms and processes. But thats asking a lot of an industry that sued Oprah Winfrey for swearing off hamburgers.
Comment by techfun (57 comments.) — November 17, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
Will, usually when I see really red meat to me it is something wrong. Please correct me if I am wrong, but when you look at your vains they are purple, and when you cut one (please don’t, this is just an example, lol), the blood turns into nice red color, due to reaction with oxygen. So to me red meat is actually artificial, and the more purple colored the it is more real. For example, if you have few steaks stack up, they are usually red outside and more purple darker color inside. I could be wrong, but to me it makes sense.
Anyway, my sister once worked in chicken packaging place, and she told me never eat frozen chicken again, she couldn’t believe how much of fillers they were adding including some gases to for packaging.
Anna
Comment by Anna (145 comments.) — December 8, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
Anna, my sister-in-law spent a year working at a turkey processing plant and she said the same thing about eating turkey lunch meat or other non-whole turkey products.
Her last job there was a promotion to food safety inspector and she went through extensive training for the job and she learned a lot of stuff that made her more comfortable with the safety guidelines. However, when she started her actual job on the line she found out that if she flagged stuff as unsafe or obeyed about 90% of the rules she was taught, her job would be in jeopardy. That was the catalyst for her eschewing turkey and leaving the industry.
Comment by techfun (57 comments.) — December 8, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
Whew! Back, (for a few minutes at least), from a long weekend of basketball games, hockey games, piano recitals, choir concerts, and more! This is a busy time of year.
I can’t believe you both have relatives that worked in poultry processing plants. Reminds me of the old saying about watching sausage get made.
JD: So basically they were holding training sessions, that probably were required, to make sure employees knew about safety, sanitation, etc. Then they would pressure them to ignore what they were taught if they wanted to keep their jobs? This is a family friendly site, so I can’t really say what I think about that!
Anna: That is a good point about the color. I think the turn to red is instant upon contact with air, so it might not indicate anything about the freshness of the meat. Linda Prout has commented on a couple of posts and indicated that grass Finnish grass fed meat and dairy are best. I am going to look at her site and a couple others to learn more about that.
-Will
Comment by Will — December 10, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
Our business suffers because of inaccurate reporting and consumer ignorance. When the carbon monoxide articles first started to appear regarding using this in packaged red meat, we got calls saying their companies had to stop using our products. The chemistry symbol for carbon monoxide is CO. We produce a CO2 vapor that is a natural gas in the atmosphere. It is safe and an anti microbial gas, and necessary for life form on our planet.
Comment by WES BOLDT (1 comments.) — June 5, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Hi
here are my two cents on the situation. What i feel is that if we can afford it we should prefer organic or local meat. This puts less fatigue on our environment and our bodies. The so called preservatives should be allowed in meat packaging as long as they are not harmful. The argument by one congressman that the discoloration did not happen is really dumb because i do not feel that something should be ridiculed just because its doing the work that it is supposed to do. What should be emphasized is that the dates on the packaging are temper proof so that no one is fooled into buying something that is not fresh
Comment by Howard (1 comments.) — June 17, 2008 @ 8:09 am
You are right. We do have limited options, but it is our responsibility to purchase responsibly. Every dollar is one vote.
Comment by Refrigerated Display Cases (1 comments.) — August 11, 2008 @ 6:10 pm