{"id":1512,"date":"2013-03-03T16:57:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-03T16:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:02","slug":"would-mechanically-recovered-meat-residue-by-any-name-still-taste-as-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/would-mechanically-recovered-meat-residue-by-any-name-still-taste-as-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Would Mechanically Recovered Meat Residue by Any Name Still Taste as Sweet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, March 3, 2013, by Jonathan Ambrose
\nFans of the horse meat scandal<\/a> will be happy to hear that the European meat processing industry was recently implicated again for the mislabeling of ingredients. This time it appears that the correct species was involved, at least.
\nThe BBC reported<\/a> on Wednesday that it had learned that European meat suppliers had been using legal loopholes to sell a banned meat product to UK sausage makers. Desinewed meat<\/a> (DSM) is made by subjecting the bones of slaughtered animals to a low-pressure mechanical meat removal process.\u00a0 The resulting meat is visually similar to a \u201cfine mince.\u201d In April 2012, the European Union banned the use of DSM from some animals, and instituted a requirement that when it is used, it does not count to the meat content of products.
\nMany suppliers across Europe, however, still produce DSM using different names, and apparently these products are immune from the ban. Baader meat<\/a> is made by removing the meat from bones using a Baader machine. It is sold as \u201cBaader Meat\u201d or \u201c3mm mince\u201d and according to some European sellers can be counted in the meat content of sausage and other products. According to a spokesman, \u201cit is meat!\u201d
\nThese allegations illustrate the difficulties that can arise when sudden changes to food safety regulations are made without considering their economic effects. The UK had been using DSM in sausage products for nearly a decade<\/a> when the European Commission declared a moratorium on its use last year. Faced with the ban, UK sausage suppliers were forced with the choice of outsourcing for a cheap supply of DSM or paying more for minced meat. But retailers and consumers are unwilling to pay more for meat products.
\nOne former government scientist, Dr. Mark Wolfe<\/a>, has implicated the DSM ban as a cause for the recent discovery of mislabeled horse meat in beef products. According to Dr. Wolfe, the Commissions decision, which was \u201cnot based on any evidence\u201d led suppliers to source cheap meat from other countries. \u201cA lot of suppliers went abroad to find alternative sources to cheap meat and that is when things went wrong.\u201d
\nAt the time of the Ban, the British Meat Processors\u2019 Association<\/a> warned of its effects, stating that it was \u201ca criminal waste of a valuable product at a time of a shortage of proteins.\u201d\u00a0 The entire experience should be a lesson to the European Commission that regulations affecting a diverse and dynamic economy may have unforeseen and unfortunate consequences. Perhaps we really don\u2019t want to know how the sausage is made.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, March 3, 2013, by Jonathan Ambrose Fans of the horse meat scandal will be happy to hear that the European meat processing industry was recently implicated again for the mislabeling of ingredients. This time it appears that the correct species was involved, at least. The BBC reported on Wednesday that it had learned that …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7617,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions\/7617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}