The Slow Food movement isn’t against eating meat. It’s for eating whole animal, better quality meat, less often. It is organic meat. Free meat. Happy meat. Are you slow? Take the quiz.

Today Slow Food launched the Meat the Change campaign, with the aim of reaching people all over the world.  The campaign aims to encourage people to reflect on the consequences of their food choices. 

How Slow Are You? is the title of a quiz on eating habits, which asks social networks users to answer multiple choices questions like “How much meat do you eat each week?” and “What criteria do you use for choosing meat when you shop?”.

The post The Slow Food Movement defines Slow Meat appeared first on Green Prophet.

Eating meat products anywhere is under fire recently, including fears that humans are destroying the planet for beef. Even poultry products are under increased scrutiny, with all kinds of growth hormones, antibiotics, and even poisons like arsenic being fed to chickens raised in commercial poultry farms. Wost of all, processed meat products people buy in their favorite supermarkets are chock full of questionable ingredients, including the notorious transglutaminase otherwise known as “meat glue”. Read on to consider some very good reasons for buying a whole animal or meat from organic sources. Much “fresh” meat in supermarkets is actually thawed from frozen cuts

Israel’s commercial meat processing industries are also coming under fire, despite the strict dietary or Kasruth food laws  that many Israelis follow as part of their daily lives. The issues surrounding commercial beef and poultry farms and slaughter houses in Israel were featured recently in a very informative and eye-opening feature article in the Haaretz  weekend magazine.

Entitled “Meat your maker: What’s really inside an Israeli steak “ focused on the reality of the meat products industry in this country was revealed in a very graphic and thought provoking way.

The article covered both red meat (mostly beef) and poultry, which Israelis consume in amazing quantities due mainly to price considerations rather than for health reasons.

In regards to beef products, the 1994 Meat and Meat Products Law stipulates that only kosher meat can be imported into Israel. This means that after the kashering process has been done to the meat after slaughter, it arrives in Israel partially dehydrated due to the amount of salt used to rid it of blood.

Water is then added to the meat which often is far more than the 10 percent allowed by law (sometimes as much as 40 to 50 percent, according to the article).

Frozen beef is often sold in supermarkets as fresh cuts, as revealed in a previous Green Prophet article written almost two years ago.  Mind you, all of these issues come even before talking about ones as adding all types of antibiotics, hormones and other additives into cattle food while the beasts are being fattened for slaughter. The use of the previously mentioned meat glue was not mentioned in the Haaretz article, but other types of flavor and texture enhances were, as said by Keren Hod, a clinical dietician:

“The substances involved include fillers (water, vegetable protein ), thickening and stabilizing agents (phosphates, gelatin, cellulose), leavening agents (sodium bicarbonate, yeast) and processed starches (monosodium glutamate, spices ). Accordingly, it’s worth taking note of the two words ‘water added’ on packaged meat.”

Chickens  make up the bulk of meat Israelis eat and are divided into two main categories: the type raised in cages in commercial poultry farms and “free running” or organic ones which are fed less growth stimulants and (supposedly) no antibiotics.

The growth stimulants and other concoctions fed to cage raised chickens result in  their reaching full growth of around 2 kg  in only 38 days as compared to over 50 days for free running fowl.

According to the article, the use of antibiotics in poultry raising has been banned by many countries, including most EU countries, Australia and New Zealand. This also holds true for pesticides such as arsenic, which were used to rid the poultry of various parasites.

The anti-parasitic additive known as roxarsone which contains arsenic is still being marketed to poultry growers, while the Israel Agricultural Ministry “preferred the stand taken by the farmers who were guided by economic considerations.”

Toxic metals, especially cadmium, are found in high quantities in commercial poultry feed as well.

Although turkeys are raised in large numbers, they are still not as preferred like chickens. That doesn’t mean these larger foul are healthier, however, as they are also fed large quantities of hormones and other growth stimulants as well as other questionable ingredients.

Both cattle and poultry have often been given feed composed of “organic remains” of animals, which often include feces or “poop” to put it more bluntly.

Organic chickens are required to be fed food made form organic grains, which result in their meet being much more expensive for consumers: NIS 38 per kg as compared to prices as low as NIS 9 per kilogram for commercially raised foul sold in large supermarket chains.

The brutal treatment that animals receive during their wretched lives is another matter, however. Specifically mentioned were cattle raised in commercial “feed lots” where overcrowding and filthy conditions are often the norm. We talked about this in the article on swine farms where pig abuse is rampant.

The bottom line to this story appears to be the profit motive of raising “factory farm” animals instead of those raised on organic food and kept in more sanitary conditions: “The supermarket expects to make a profit of 30% on my chickens,” an organic poultry grower told the Haaretz reporter. This is why his products cost so much more.

Judging from what is usually seen at  supermarket meat counters, most consumers appear to pass up the more expensive natural brands for the cheaper chemical laced ones, poop and arsenic and all.

Word of caution: if these atrocities are happening in Israel where the government is fairly authoritative we wonder what can possibly be happening in other Middle Eastern countries with little regulation over meat.

More about commercial meal issues in Israel and elsewhere:
Arsenic Fed Chickens – Watch Out!
The Meat You Eat May Not be What You think
Meat glue: Is Anybody talking About It?
Pig Abuse Rampant in Kosher Israel

Chicken Farm in Taiwan from Shutterstock

The post Israeli Meat Fed With Feces and Pumped With Toxic Contaminants appeared first on Green Prophet.

Much has been said about the great political upheavals that swept through the Middle East in 2011 – some for good and some for nought – but less attention has been paid to the state of our environment. We have stepped up to the plate by collecting 10 of the year’s most popular stories – from blood-clotting meat glue to Gaddafi’s tragic fall and giant plumes of gurgling methane that could accelerate planetary warming – in order to inspire our readers to keep on fighting the good fight on nature’s behalf. Step on in for a wonderful overview of 2011 and please accept Green Prophet’s heartfelt wishes for a more mindful 2012.

1. Meat Glue

Thousands of people have shared the meat industry’s dirty little secret with their friends and family, and for good reason. This sinister powder glues together scraps of beef, chicken and other meat to make it appear more palatable to consumers, and once the pieces are put together, not even trained butchers can tell the difference. Most chefs use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate – a milk protein. The European Parliament banned “meat glue” in 2010, as it is known to cause blood clots.

2. 1000 Naked Israelis and the Dead Sea

Nobody was more surprised than us how curious international readers would be to see pictures of naked Israelis, but this is our second most popular story of 2011. 1,000 Israelis gathered for a Spencer Tunick photoshoot designed to raise awareness of the Dead Sea’s fragile ecological state. All kinds of controversy ensued with close-up images leaked and criticism leveled at the artist’s methodology. Neverthless, with all the attention this little photo received, the Dead Sea has been etched into the consciousness of many people – and that was exactly the point.

3. The Solid Gold “Biofuel” Mercedes

Although Abu Dhabi has taken enormous strides this year towards a greener future – even shaming the White House by putting solar panels on an important municipal building – every so often a “face palm” story emerges that completely skews the Emirate’s reputation. This is one of them. In a misguided effort to be eco-friendly, the Mercedes pictured above was designed to run on biofuel, which would have been admirable if the car wasn’t also made out of solid white gold! Click the title to learn more about this dubious development.

4. Giant Plumes of Gurgling Methane

Our fourth most popular story is also one of our scariest. Scientists have long worried that a warmer planet would melt ice and permafrost in the great white north, under which lies layer upon layer of plant debris that has not yet decomposed. If this debris is exposed, it will release nearly 2 trillion tons of carbon, or worse, methane into our saturated atmosphere. Already Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of pools of gurgling methane up to 1,000 meters in diameter bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean.

5. Japan Nuclear Meltdown

The Fukushima nuclear disaster was a planetary wake-up call that some countries heard – such as Germany – and that others plum ignored, including Egypt and Turkey (although there’s a chance a recent earthquake has convinced the latter to reconsider their nuclear ambitions). Apart from the tar sands in Canada, this was the planet’s worst environmental calamity this year and it’s still unknown how it will impact on the world environment. Dr. Helen Caldicott thinks the fallout will be worse than Chernobyl, but really, only time will tell.

6. Shark Finning

This is probably the most disturbing image we posted on Green Prophet this year, and it received a lot of attention. A hammerhead shark and all 45 of her pups were found dead at the Deira fish market in Dubai – a shocking testament of how poorly the Gulf country’s marine life is protected. Soon after this story we toured the United Arab Emirates to talk about The End of a Line – a powerful movie that depicts the severe state of the planet’s marine ecosystems, and witnessed firsthand tasteless dried shark fins on sale.

7. Gaddafi’s Great Man Made River

It’s impossible to get through a roundup of 2011 stories without mentioning Gaddafi – Libya’s eccentric leader who turned rogue and eventually died at the hands of his own people. But we had to wonder, will the one really great project he initiated fall to pieces now that he’s gone? Began in the early 1980s and built at a cost of more than $33 billion USD, the GMMR project involved pumping “fossilized” water from depths of more than 500 meters, purifying it, and then sending it to the country’s most populated, dry areas. Nobody really knows for certain, but it seems possible that without funds or a proper civil administration, this project has reached a near standstill.

8. Masdar City Open House Photos

While we were touring the United Arab Emirates to bring you on-the-ground coverage, we managed to snap a pile of exclusive images of the much touted Masdar City. A source of intrigue since its inception, as well as derision, we were impressed by the construction that has been completed. Of course, the project has not met its zero-carbon or zero-waste ambitions and has been scaled back several times, but there’s a lot to be said for the futuristic earth-colored buildings that create a most welcome microclimate despite the extraordinary desert heat.

9. Ethiopia’s “Dam” Plans

No story in 2011 received as much support from its nationals than this one. Ethiopia has long been the very epitome of poverty, a situation that the country is eager to change with a series of dams that will provide hydroelectricity. One project – the Grand Renaissance Dam – will be Africa’s largest dam and threatens Egypt’s longstanding and unfair monopoly of the Nile River. Until now, the country’s leaders have not properly considered this particular project’s environmental integrity, though we reported today that Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia are forming a team of experts who have at least committed to conducting a year-long study starting next month.

10. Egypt’s First Solar Thermal Plant

Even as the country reeled under the weight of transition, Egypt still managed to open its very first solar thermal plant this year and we managed to stop by for a visit. Located just 90km south of Cairo, Kuraymat is a 150 MW Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) power plant that has been feeding energy into the grid since July, 2011. Click on the title for more details and to see a host of our exclusive images.

That’s a wrap folks. Happy New Year!

The post Top 10 Environmental Stories From the Middle East (2011) appeared first on Green Prophet.

Over the years we have covered a host of freaky food and water-related stories that have the power to turn even the most adventurous eater into an obsessive label-reader, so we thought it was high time to collate six of the most disturbing in one convenient post as a reminder of how important it is to question just about everything we eat and to source our food from ethical markets.

You’ll be shocked to learn that holy ZamZam water from Mecca was found to be laced with arsenic, non-organic soy goes through a toxic chemical bath before it is compressed into a veggie burger, and that bread you love so much could very well contain traces of human hair. Learn more about these and other “hair-raising” food stories right after the break.

It’s hard to say which of these stories is the grossest, so to speak, so don’t take our ordering too seriously, though we have left one of our most explosive stories for the end!

1. Human-Based Gelatin

China is not known for either its human or animal rights record, so it comes as no surprise to us that researchers at the University of Chemical Technology in Beijing, China, are culturing human collagen genes to develop yeast. These will then reproduce en masse to create vast supplies of gelatin used for pill capsules, desserts, and cosmetics! And the reason for using human genes, which doesn’t have to be reported to the consumer, according to the scientists working on the project? To reduce animal-related allergies and the spread of disease.

2. Human hair in bread

We hate to say it, but the Chinese are behind this shocking story as well. Although L-cysteine seems harmless enough – it’s a non-essential amino acid – it is derived from human hair that is dissolved in acid. Once the L-cysteine has been isolated, it is shipped off to bread producers who then use it to condition their dough. Aside from sounding completely unpalatable, consuming anything from human beings is a big no no for Jews and Muslims alike.

3. Chemical Degreasers in Soya Burgers

The vegetarians among us have long believed that eating veggie burgers will reduce our environmental impact and spare goodness knows how many tons of meat every year, but we learned from the Cornucopia Institute that non-organic soy products are “washed” in a chemical bath that can take the grease off the dirtiest engine! These baths typically consist of  50-60% n-hexane, a heavy industrial solvent and degreaser, along with a remaining mixture of cyclohexane, methycyclohexane and methypentanes – none of which sound especially delicious.

4. Arsenic in Holy Water

This next story is also one of our most controversial, since Zam Zam Holy Water from Mecca is considered sacred to Muslims and any so-called export of the product, which is illegal, is to be viewed with suspicion. Nonetheless, the BBC went undercover to take samples of a well in Mecca, and discovered that it contained levels of arsenic – a poisonous toxic – that are 3 x higher than what is considered safe for human consumption. Is this healing drinkers, as Muslims believe, or harming them?

5. Fluoride “Fertilizer” in Water

This isn’t the first time we’ve used the word shocking to describe these stories, but considering that in some countries it is required by law to have fluoride in our waterways, this story really will shock you. Miriam interviewed an occupational health and toxicology expert, who revealed that fluorides – a byproduct of fertilizer, nuclear, aluminum, steel, and pesticide industries – is supposed to prevent tooth decay, but is actually a powerful toxin responsible for such ills as cancer, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, and neurological disorders among others. We definitely encourage you to read more.

 6. Pork Plasma in Meat Glue

This story has been one of our most widely read and it’s easy to see why. This little package of white powder has the capability of turning 100 kg of otherwise useless scraps of beef, lamb, chicken, and fish look good enough to eat. The trouble is, transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form derived from beef and pork blood plasma, comes with an unhealthy serving of blood clots, and it’s not necessary to report to customers that it’s being used. And because it binds scraps together so tightly, bacteria tends to stick to it too. The EU banned meat glue in 2010, but any old joe can pick up a pack at amazon if they wish!

The post Top 6 Freaky Foods To Avoid appeared first on Green Prophet.

Finding a scientist to talk about meat glue wasn’t easy. I spoke to neurologists, biologists, pathologists, the head physician at a local hospital, and biochemists. None had even heard of transglutaminase.  When I described it and asked if they thought it dangerous to ingest, all gave the same easy answer: “Can’t really see a problem.”

Why were these medical professionals so unconcerned? The answer seems to be, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

There’s been almost no research on  long-term effects of meat glue on living humans. And as I mentioned in our first meat glue post, the one study available to the layman was funded by the manufacturer. How unbiased can that be?

It seems I’d been talking to the wrong people. At length an American  bio-inorganic chemist agreed to do some informal research into meat glue, although he had never heard of it either. His conclusion was,

Following us so far? Meat glue is meant to weld separate substances together. The red light goes on when we consider that it doesn’t decompose – doesn’t metabolize – doesn’t get digested. So once we’ve swallowed it, where does it  go? Some must get excreted, of course. But where does the residue circulating in the bloodstream wind up?

“Let’s compare it to Elmer’s Glue versus Crazy Glue,” our source continued. “Elmer’s dissolves if you get it wet. But Crazy Glue is almost impossible to destroy. Transglutaminase can be compared to Crazy Glue, possibly going through the stomach and gut, and resisting digestion. ”

I thought of Chef Dufresene  throwing a glued composite of cucumbers and carrots down on a table, watching it bounce, and triumphantly saying, “It’s bullet-proof!” (see our second post about meat glue.) At the time, I thought, who wants to eat something bullet-proof? Now I realized that indestructible has greater implications.

“Transglutaminase might have valuable medicinal applications,” said the chemist. “In wound healing, for example. But like antibiotics, it shouldn’t be added to food indiscriminately. The long-range effects of consuming large amounts of the products of the transglutaminase reaction are not known.  People are eating it all the time, though, and lots of it.

“Since I’ve started looking into this, I’ve become aware of how much meat glue really is out there. This doesn’t stand as scientific proof, being an anecdote from my personal experience, but the following story shows why I’ve become convinced that meat glue is dangerous.

“My pre-teen daughter has had joint pain for several years. My wife and I took her to different doctors and specialists and no one could discover the reason.

“Our diet included cheap beef, the kind that has a lot of water when it thaws out. I used to cook it frozen so as not to lose all that flavorful water that I paid for.”

(Another red light: some frozen meat is injected with water to add weight, just as some imported frozen fish. Is this water also meat glue slurry? How can we know, if the law doesn’t require it to be listed on the label?)

“The meat  retained its nice cubic shape after long stewing. Even if I cut the meat into smaller cubes, it kept its shape. Long-cooked meat should fall apart, not stay in cubes. With my recent research into transglutaminase fresh in mind, I concluded that the meat had been glued. I stopped buying it.

“Once that meat was eliminated from the family diet, the pain in my daughter’s arms stopped. She has considerable relief from pain in her legs too.  No other factors have changed in her life.

” I won’t be buying that meat again. I strongly suspect that although transglutaminase isn’t listed in the ingredients, meat glue is what keeps those convenient cubes together.  And when you think of it, cooking it at home is done just the way the food industry does it. Glue the meat, wrap it in plastic and chill it for several hours, then slice it into any shape you want. The customer picks it up already processed, in its plastic wrapping. All that’s left is to cook it.”

Even vegetarians may be exposed to meat glue and not know it. The food industry uses it to thicken yogurt and create new kinds of pastas. Where else does meat glue show up that we don’t know about? And why is no one talking about it?

Ignorance is dangerous. Take smoking. According to Wikipedia, “In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States released the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health. It was based on over 7000 scientific articles that linked tobacco use with cancer and other diseases.” Yet ads recommending tobacco for pleasure and even health benefits had been encouraging smoking since 1868. A century.

How long are you going to wait  to find out if your food contains transglutaminase, and what it might be doing to your health?

Time to demand independent research on meat glue, now.

More substances you should know about on Green Prophet:

• McNuggets? Macabre.
• Environmental Chemicals Pack the Pounds on You
• Human-Based Gelatin? Yum!

:: Wikipedia

Image of early cigarette ad from Lane Medical Library Digital Document Repository

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An article in the Huffington Post by Dr. Joseph Mercola caught my attention recently. It was about McNuggets, the chicken-based fried food that caused a drunken woman to riot when denied her nugget fix last year. Those amused by irrational behavior can watch the surveillance video. It seems that those little fried chunks are addictive. Yet the ingredients listed on their packaging makes me want to head right out to the local farmer’s market, right now.

So what’s really in McNuggets? Although the McDonalds chain has thankfully taken mechanically separated chicken (a paste created out of bones and the scraps clinging to them) out of its kitchens since April of 2010 , the nuggets purportedly contain dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone and tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a highly toxic  chemical preservative.

But those chemicals are strong enough to make up only a small percentage of the ingredients. According to Dr. Mercola,

“Only 50 percent of a McNugget is actually chicken. The other half includes corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and completely synthetic ingredients.”

And consider this: the label on your chicken nuggets may say “white meat,” but it may be dark meat denatured by being washed and spun through a centrifuge to resemble white. The process (read more about making it white meat it here) is the creation of Dr. Daniel Fletcher, professor at the University of Connecticut’s College of Agriculture and National Resources. He says that the fake white meat isn’t meant to rival the real thing, but that “… it’s a filler that can be used to add protein and amino acids to something else, such as chicken nuggets.”

I ponder the larger implications. Why should chicken need a filler to make it nutritious and worth eating? Surely chicken is tasty and filling all on its own – if it’s real chicken. This article from the  Poultry Science Association, read carefully, betrays the food industry’s interest in using additives”…such as starches (regular, modified), carrageenans, and enzymes” to compensate for inferior-looking chicken meat.

Starches – like genetically modified corn?

Carrageenans – a thickener known to be carcinogenic?

And what are those enzymes – transglutaminase, perhaps – otherwise known as meat glue?

It’s enough to make me go home to Mama. At her table, chicken is the real thing.

More on synthetically modified foods from Green Prophet:

• Meat Glue: It’s Everywhere
• GMO Beets Coming to a Sugar Supplier Near You?
• Udderly Creepy? Humanized Cow’s Milk

:: Huffington Post

Photo by  Fritz Saalfeld via Wikimedia Commons.

The post McNuggets? Macabre. appeared first on Green Prophet.

The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s dirty little secret. It’s “meat glue.” It makes pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or fish that would normally be thrown out stick together so closely that it looks like a solid piece of meat. See also our posts on Israel’s frozen fish scandal and how garlic from China is scary stuff.

Restaurants and butchers  can now sell their scraps as premium meat. Good way to use them up – and charge premium prices for them too. Best of all, you don’t have to tell the customer. Once the glued meat is cooked, even professional butchers can’t tell the difference.

What is transglutaminase?

“Meat glue” is transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form, derived from beef and pork blood plasma. See the Wikipedia description of it here. Chefs most commonly use the Activa RM brand, which is transglutaminase mixed with maltodextrine and sodium caseinate, a milk protein.  Using enzymes in food isn’t a new technique. Papaya seed is the main ingredient in meat tenderizers, for example. Rennet and yeasts produce enzymes that make cheese and alcohol, too. Natural enzymes. Meat glue is a darker product altogether.

Yet according to Cooking Issues, the French Culinary Institute’s blog (USA), meat glue is safe. That is, the major study carried out to gain acceptance by the FDA says so. And why shouldn’t we believe? It was funded by Ajinomoto, the product’s manufacturer, after all.

A scientist we interviewed about meat glue could only speak *on anonymity* about the hazards.

This video from Australia’s TodayTonight TV show demonstrates how easily you can create Frankenstein meat. Just sprinkle a teaspoon of  powdered transglutaminase on various meat scraps, knead them together and roll them up in plastic wrap. Put in the fridge and 6 hours later, you have an easily-sliced piece of meat that looks like real fillet.

Only make sure to wear your face mask while performing the simple operation: you don’t want to be inhaling powder that makes your blood clot abnormally.

Do you want to be eating it either?

Banned by the European Parliament in May 2010, meat glue is freely available through sources like Amazon.com. The information from the French Culinary Institute states that 1 kg. will hold over 100 kg. of meat parts together. This is the product description of meat glue exactly as it appears on Amazon.com:

The post Meat Glue (Transglutaminase): The Meat Industry’s Dirty Secret appeared first on Green Prophet.