if government inspectors can depress the flesh of the chicken with their thumbs. So in 1988 the Department of Agriculture announced that it was considering a new policy. The word “fresh” could not be used on any chicken if it had been frozen or previously reduced to a temperature of twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit or below. The chicken industry immediately fought the proposed standard. It makes you wonder just how “fresh” all those “deep- chilled” chickens being sold these days are. The next time you buy “fresh” chicken, you might ask whether the chicken has been “deep-chilled.”
Picowaved Food
The latest innovation in the food industry is irradiated food, or food that has been treated with ionizing or gamma radiation to extend shelf life or kill insects. While ionizing or gamma radiation isn’t radioactive, it is suspected of causing chemical changes in food, changes whose safety has been questioned by some scientists and consumer groups. But the government and the food industry decided to go ahead with irradiated food.
Now, nobody in the food industry wanted to put the word “radiation” on a food package. As Ellen Green, a spokesperson for the National Food Processors Association, said, “The word ‘radiation’ is a scary word.” What, then, could the food industry and the Food and Drug Administration do? At first the FDA recommended that irradiated food carry labels referring to “gamma” and “ionized” radiation, but the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency with final say in these matters, opposed any form of labeling. However, the agency gave in to public pressure and sought a “creative” solution. It considered the labels “gamma” and “ionized” to be “too negative,” so it chose the word “picowave” instead.
The word “picowave” has no real meaning. It was created by a company in California and was designed to be similar to the word “microwave,” which is a completely different kind of radiation, but it’s a word very familiar to the public. Thus, foods that have been irradiated will be labeled “picowaved.” An industry spokesperson said that, “from a public relations standpoint, it is more pleasant to the ear than gamma radiation or electromagnetic energy.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler called the labeling “an important step forward for consumers.” Said U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, “It’s the ultimate in untruth in advertising.”
Picowaved food will also carry an international symbol which looks like a little flower inside a broken circle. The circle is supposed to represent the radiation facility. There is a black dot in the middle of the circle, which is supposed to represent the source of the radiation, and the petals of the flowers represent the irradiated food. Before you buy the picowaved food with the cute little flower symbol on it, you might ask yourself what it is you’re really buying.
Mechanically Separated Meat
The next time you want to buy some hot dogs, sausage, luncheon meat, scrapple, or canned spaghetti with meat sauce, you might want to read the list of ingredients on the label very carefully. Does the list of ingredients include “Mechanically Separated Meat”? Do you know what MSM (as it’s called in the food trade) is? Here’s the recipe. Take the salvaged remnants of slaughtered animals, remnants that include bones, connecting tissue, and attached scraps of meat, pass this collection of scraps through a grinder, and then press the mixture through sieves until most of the bone is filtered out. (Some pieces of ground bone are always left in the mixture, but, hey, no process is perfect.)
Until 1982 this stuff was called “salvaged meat,” but for some reason it just wasn’t selling, probably because manufacturers were required to label the amount of “powdered bone” the mixture contained. Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture came to the rescue. Suddenly “salvaged meat” became “Mechanically Separated Meat” and the list of ingredients on a label would no longer have to include “ground bone.” All that would have to be listed was “Mechanically Separated Meat” and the amount of “calcium” in the average serving.
The meat processing industry still wasn’t happy, though, so in 1988 Bob Evans Farms, Inc., the Odom Sausage Company, the Sara Lee Corporation, and Owen Country Sausage, Inc. petitioned the Department of Agriculture to allow hot dogs and other products to contain up to 10 percent MSM without listing it as an ingredient on the label. Read those food labels fast, because soon even the innocuous phrase “Mechanically Separated Meat” will no longer be there. But don’t worry; the amount of “calcium” per serving will still be listed, because the ground bone will still be there.
Lite Up Your Life
Words sell food, and they sell beer, too, but you have to ask yourself what the words really mean. Diet beer was around for years, but it certainly didn’t sell. After all, what real man wants to belly up to the bar and order a diet beer? Them’s fighting words, partner. But along come the marketing geniuses of the Miller Brewing Company, who changed the word “diet” to “lite,” hired a bunch of ex-jocks to extol the virtues of “less-filling” beer, and sales history was made. So now it’s all right to drink diet beer, because it’s not diet beer, it’s “lite” beer.
We’re dedicated to becoming a nation of lightweights (or is that liteweights?). We’re watching what we eat. Even restaurant menus offer light meals and slim platters. No one really knows what a light meal in a restaurant is, except it seems to contain a lot of lettuce. We may not know what light foods really are or what makes them light, but when it comes to buying light foods in the supermarket we know one thing: They cost more. Today you can light up your life with any kind of food you want. There’s light milk, light spaghetti sauce, light frozen dinners, light mayonnaise, light cookies, light potato chips, light ice cream, and even light ketchup. Legally, a manufacturer can call a food product “light” even if it contains only a few calories less than a comparable product. You probably didn’t know it, but regular ketchup contains only fifteen or sixteen calories per serving. Now comes the light version, for more money, which offers eight to nine calories per serving.
The Cooperative Extension of New York State warned consumers in 1984 that, just because such words as “natural,” “light,” “life,” “health,” “nutrition,” “country,” “nature,” “harvest,” “fair,” and “farm” appear on packages (along with pictures of sheaves of wheat, farms, green valleys, streams of clear running water, and farmers toiling in the field), it does not mean the contents are farm fresh, wholesome, organic, or healthy. After all, when was the last time you bought a loaf of bread that was anything less than “fresh baked”?
The Fine Print of Food Labels
The next time you wander through the supermarket, try reading the small print on the labels of a few products. You’ll find Wrigley’s Orbit chewing gum is, according to its wrapper, “not non-caloric,” that Lance’s “naturally flavored” spice drops contain natural and artificial flavors, and that Original New York Seltzer claims on its label “no sucrose” but does contain “fructose syrup.” (By the way, it’s not made in New York, it’s not seltzer, and it’s not original, but just another soda pop.)
Nabisco’s 100% Bran contains wheat bran, sugar, malted barley flour, salt, fig juice, prune juice, and other stuff. So just what does “100%” in the name of this cereal mean? Or try Armour Potted Meat Food Product. Do you have any idea what a “meat food product” is? What does “potted” mean—that it comes in a can? The word “product” reminds me of those famous “meat by-products” in dog food. Take a close look at the label on this “meat food product” and you’ll find that it’s made of cooked beef fat tissue, partially defatted beef fatty tissue, and sodium erythorbate flavorings. Just like mom used to make.
The label on the Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner pro-claims, “Complete with rich, creamy cheese sauce. Made with a blend of natural cheeses and other fine
