Fast Food Hamburgers Could be as Little as 2 Percent ACTUAL Meat

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/shocking-fast-food-hamburgers-could-be-little-2-percent-actual-meat-1375453182

Here is a breakdown of what you might find in a fast food hamburger according to the study’s findings:

•Water content by weight ranged from 37.7% to 62.4% (mean of 49%).
•Meat content in the hamburgers ranged from 2.1% to 14.8% (median of 12.1%).
•The cost per gram of hamburger ranged from $0.02 to $0.16 (median of $0.03).
•Relatively preserved skeletal muscle was observed.
•A variety of tissue types besides skeletal muscle were observed including connective tissue, blood vessels, peripheral nerve, adipose tissue, plant material, cartilage, and bone.
•In 2 hamburgers, intracellular parasites were identified.

[MADem]

1. Why don't they just offer good soyburgers? I like those, they're easy on the gut. nt

[DonCoquixote]

8. Burger King actually DOES

They call it a veggie Whopper

http://www.livestrong.com/article/272303-calories-in-a-veggie-burger-at-burger-king/

A Burger King veggie burger consists of a garden veggie patty made by Morningstar Farms plus tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise and ketchup. It is served on a sesame seed bun.

[MADem]

11. I remember in UK Burger King offered the veggie burger (whch was textured soy) and the

gardenburger, which was a mushroom and veggie burger. They were both good but I preferred the first one.

I haven't been to a fast food place in years, didn't realize they were serving those.

[DonCoquixote]

12. Feedback works

even the strongest rock will get ground into sand by a persistent tide.

[Kablooie]

14. Yeah but they are filled with soy connective tissue ans blood vessels.

[Ratty]

22. I cannot STAND soyburgers

Nasty tasting things. But I love love love mushroom burgers.

[love_katz]

2. Oh, yum...er, not!

[RudynJack]

3. What is the water content

of ground beef from other sources?

[uppityperson]

6. This link says 55% but I do not see a source.

http://www.cooksinfo.com/ground-beef

[RudynJack]

29. It just seems weird to me

to remove the water and claim what's left is meat.

If you remove the water and sugar, a watermelon is only 3% watermelon.

[uppityperson]

32. Yup. Statistics are interesting things. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[NewThinkingChance40]

4. yeah, but

You don't eat fast food for its health benefits. You eat it cause it tastes good, although after seeing this, I may eat a little less of it

[uppityperson]

5. What does "relatively preserved skeletal muscle" mean?

Also, if you grind up muscles, You also will get some blood vessels, blood and fat (adipose tissue). Ever wonder what "fat content" of different grinds of hamburger is? It is, well, how much fat is in it. In US fat is limited to 30%. Also nerves are in some muscle masses.

Ed to remove info copied in error

[Riftaxe]

9. Fat content is the taste

Some days i do truly enjoy being a biological composite!

Pork or beef lips? I have no problem with, having processed both, sadly I am one of the few who know what i eat, how it is prepared, and properly spiced I have absolutely no problem with any of it <not a fan of bland>

[Riftaxe]

7. They still taste better

and are a mighty relief from the nightmare of Tofu.

Tofu itself was released too early to be a proper food for the proles, damned soy magnates got ahead of themselves and forgot the masses enjoy things with taste and texture.

But Dang it all, it could have worked!

[MADem]

13. Tofu is pretty good if you make it right. I like it grilled, slathered in teriyaki sauce.

You have to get all the water out of it and the extra firm grills up best. It tastes better than steak if you do it right.

[Riftaxe]

15. Well hard to argue that carbonized

it does not give it a bit of a tang, apparently i have never done it right It can make a good substitute for potatoes in rare circumstances.

Then again, if you cannot afford potatoes, it is hardly likely to come up.

[joshcryer]

16. Quorn / Fusarium venenatum is what you want.

Try it, it's very close.

Why it's not being mass produced, I don't know. I'm sure there are plenty of lobbys pushing back against it but I think if the right venture capitalist came along and sold it for super cheap it would cause a massive strain to the meat (and even soy and potentially corn) industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium_venenatum

Since it's no longer patented I want to get some of it and play around, see if I can grow my own batch / process it.

[Bluenorthwest]

27. It's certainly produced we love the cutlets with goat cheese and cranberry as well

as the 'ground' version. Our local markets have a variety of Quorn products and have for many years. They are more popular and more widely available in the UK, but I have no problems finding them anywhere...good 'chicken nuggets as well, I love their stuff.
http://www.quorn.us/

[xfundy]

10. Anus burger!

yum.

[laundry_queen]

17. Did they compare to a homemade burger?

What is the water content in a homemade 100% ground beef burger? What is the similar breakdown of that? WTF do they mean 'skeletal muscle' - wouldn't THAT be meat too? Wouldn't most meat have connective tissue in it? Adipose is fat, BTW, most meat has some fat. Also, sometimes you get bone and cartilage fragments during butchering but it gets ground in. And what do they mean by 'parasites'? like tapeworms, or do they mean bacteria? And how is this all different from the ground beef you buy at the supermarket?

Seems to me they are simply listing things that are normal to find in meat and making it sound like MEAT is something separate from fat, tissue and blood. Um, that's what meat is made up of.

I've posted this in other threads, but I had a friend who worked in a meat rendering plant that filled orders for local McDonalds. Basically, their burgers ARE 100% beef...it's extra lean ground beef mixed with fat from dairy cows (apparently the fat from dairy cows gives it a 'unique' flavor that other breeds of cows don't have)...and my friend said McDonalds was absolutely meticulous with it's beef preparation and it's the only fast food place he'll eat at because he knows the beef is clean and safe.

Anyway, fast food has major issues, but the meat isn't usually the problem. The sugar content in breads and the fat content in some milkshakes or fries or desserts is a bigger deal and should be avoided before the meat should be.

[skepticscott]

18. Exactly

The article is basically a lot of scare tactics, aimed at people who don't know any better.

And yes, duh...a lot of foods are mostly water. So are we.

[duffyduff]

26. +1,000

If we knew everything about every bit of food we put in our mouths, we'd never eat again.

[uppityperson]

33. Exactly back to your exactly. Scare tactics and misleading numbers. We are mostly water too.

[uppityperson]

34. "intracellular parasites", meaning inside cells. "skeletal muscle" is all muscle but the heart.

There is blood in your meat!!!! well, yes, there is. And other tissue too. Connective and adipose tissue? What are they thinking, that hamburger is made of carefully stripped and ground beef hearts?

It seems scare tactics and thanks for posting more in depth.

[hobbit709]

19. What a crock of partial truths

Meat is naturally 50-70% water. Adipose tissue is a fancy way of saying FAT.

I eat meat but I don't eat fast food burgers. The meat I buy is not fasctory farmed meat and the difference in taste is unbelievable.

[Major Nikon]

39. Clearly the article is misleading

What do they expect, beef jerky on a bun?

[PotatoChip]

20. Yuck!

I almost wish I hadn't read this, since I must admit to enjoying a whopper once in awhile. Like, once every couple of months or so.

But now? Eeewww, I don't know. May have to rethink this.

[Igel]

24. Some of it is scary science words to frighten those with Ds in high school biology.

Peripheral nerve tissue. If a muscle is usable, if it's near a body surface that has the feeling of touch or even sweat glands, it has to have peripheral nerve tissue.

Adipose tissue. That's fat. You know that nice marbled look that Americans like in beef--and that make Kobe beef so expensive? It's skeletal muscular tissue marbled with adipose tissue. Most gravy is composed of rendered adipose tissue and water from skeletal muscle.

You know what you call muscle tissue without veins and arteries? Necrotic--which is just a fancy word for "dead." It usually implies drying or rotting, as well.

Connective tissue is what keeps the animal cells that make up humans from being a kind of slurry. Collagen, mostly--which most of us know from shampoos, but which also make up Jello. Some connective tissue is those annoying membranes, the thin but tough tissue you find in, oh, roasts. In some parts of the animal those are a quarter inch or more thick, in other parts paper thin.

The intracellular parasites are various kinds of diseases. Probably Brucella. Possibly a parasite that causes anemia. You don't want Brucella. But the animals were probably asymptomatic at the time and, once cooked, they're like the billions of other bacteria that you consume every day. Harmless.

This is why I avoid anatomy and physiology for the most part. As soon as I think of a person as a collection of muscle, nerves, bones, sacs, etc., it's really easy to just find them disgusting and think of Nihilists as principled moralizing romantics. Basically mammals are just bags of water that consume dead things and produce poo.

On edit: Parasite was Sarcocystis. Cooking or freezing kills it. Low incidence, but occurs in pretty much every kind of land-based food animal we have. Can be nasty. One really good reason not to eat raw meat.

[ileus]

21. They forgot meat is murder...

[Duckhunter935]

23. Tastes good to me

People in other countries eat eat a lot of exotic things.

[Zorra]

25. I am using my treacherous Vegetarian Agenda to wean my SO off of blood food by

cooking for her. Changing her palate while whispering subtle, insidious vegetarian propagands in her ear.

Preaching totally doesn't work; when carnivores tell me my vegetarian meals are delicious, I say "I'm so glad you liked it", nod, smile, and think to myself "fish on!".

Last time she was here (long distance relationship) she stayed for 3 days and I cooked all the meals whenever we ate at home.

Veggie omelettes with meatless sausage sauteed with red and green bell peppers and onions smothered in green chili sauce.

Meatless "chicken" parmesan with gruyere, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese and homemade pasta sauce with a side of pasta after a meatless seasoned soy antipasto, served with hot garlic bread.

Meatless deli slice philly cheese steak sandwiches with the deli slices cut into strips sauteed in peppers and onions, swiss cheese, and mayo, served on a fresh roll.

Eggs Benedict made with hot crispy veggie bacon.

1/4 lb Deluxe Sloppy Soyburgers cooked on the grill, with fried onions, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, diced garlic dill pickles, mayo, mustard, and ketchup served on a fresh Kaiser roll.

Meatless stroganoff made with sauteed then seared veggie beef tips.

And my specialty, homemade marinara sauce veggie lasagna, made with mozzarella, parmesan, and a ricotta-cottage cheese blend, veggie ground beef and zucchini sauteed in butter, onions, garlic and spices.

Afterwards, some nice wine out on the deck as the sun goes down, some light, tasty jazz,, the pleasant glow of a great meal that does not sit heavy...

I'm pretty sure I've got her hooked. She commented about how she felt better after 3 days, and actually took pictures of all the veggie products I use before she went home.

Hungry?

[RebelOne]

41. Your recipes sound delicious.

You must post them on the Vegetarian, Vegan and Animal Rights forum. I would love to try them.

[flvegan]

46. Zounds! You mentioned the TVA!

Never mention the TVA out loud or in print. EVER!!!!

[Sunlei]

28. so that's where the decent quality dog food went !!

[Snotcicles]

30. It's like a smorgasbord in a bun. nt

[cthulu2016]

31. Exaggeration does not help make a case

The finest steak in the world is, by this standard, only 35%-50% meat.

The water content is irrelevant to the question "how much of this substance here is meat versus non-meat solids" which is what anyone would actually mean in wondering how much of a McD burger was meat.

[RebelOne]

35. I am a vegetarian, but long before I turned vegetarian,

I wouldn't eat fast food hamburgers because they were full of nothing but fillers.

[LiberalElite]

36. Well, it IS ground up cow -

and NO, I don't eat it.

[Sunlei]

38. lol they never said, beef or cow..just called it 2%- 12%"meat"

[HiPointDem]

37. this doesn't make sense to me; it seems designed to be sensational. adipose & connective

tissue, etc are part of 'meat'.

i don't know what the purpose is in separating them out in this way.

similarly, 'meat' includes a seemingly high percentage of water; the human body is something like 90% water.

there may be many things wrong with hamburger meat, but this isn't the way to express them.

[liberal_at_heart]

40. Well if you say so, I guess I better quit eating hamburgers immediately.

[MineralMan]

42. Crock!

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Yuk.

[Rex]

45. They should just go to soy.

If they are to lazy or cheap to make it with 100% ground beef. Lazy and cheap.