Transglutaminase, also known as “meat glue,” is used to fuse proteins together to form one connected piece of meat. But many don’t know of its existence.
The video’s uploader said he takes issue with restaurants passing off scraps of meat that are fused via transglutaminase as authentic pieces of steak.
“I’m not a fan,” he says. “Some people have never heard of this stuff... I think it’s important to know what we put in our bodies, which is why I decided to produce this video,” he wrote in the comments section.
In the video, the chef points to the formed piece of meat, and one can see where the two slabs are fused together.
But after he cuts it into pieces, it looks like a normal steak.
It looks even more convincing after it’s grilled, he stated.
“If didn’t know any better, I'd think it was steak,” he said after giving it a taste test, adding that “it’s nice.”
He made the video because there’s “deception going on out there,” he said.
“I really have a problem where a restaurant or a dining hall is trying to pass off” fused together “scraps” of meat like a real steak, the chef says in the video.
He said that a number of fast-food restaurants can use it in products such as Chicken McNuggets sold at McDonald’s.
But the chief said he has problems with fine dining establishments passing off a piece of meat using “meat glue” as a real filet mignon steak or another expensive cut of meat.
A few years ago, ABC News published
a report on meat glue, which stated: “The outside of a piece of meat comes in contact with a lot of bacteria making its way from slaughterhouse to table. Usually cooking a steak on the outside will kill all that off. The center of a single cut of steak is sterile, that’s why you can eat it rare. But glued pieces of meat could contain bacteria like E. coli on the inside.”
According to the 2012 report, the FDA-approved additive used in places that mainly serve meat in bulk, including restaurants.
But the European Union banned its use in 2010 due to safety concerns.
The American Meat Institute has estimated that it’s used in about eight million pounds of meat each year in the United States,
NutritionFacts reported.“Transglutaminase can be used to cross-link pieces of any type of meat, fish, or meat product, and hence can be used to produce large chunks of virtually intact looking meat or fish out of small meat or fish cuttings. When researchers actually tested for transglutaminase in 20 samples of meat from the supermarket, they found meat glue in only two of the samples—in a sample of salmon and a sample of turkey,” it says.
Foods Likely to Have ‘Meat Glue’
According to Healthline, foods that are likely to have transglutaminase are: Manufactured chicken nuggets, products containing “formed” or “reformed” meat, and foods that contain “TG enzyme,” “enzyme,” or “TGP enzyme,” Other foods include fast food, manufactured poultry pieces, sausages, bacon crumbles and hot dogs, as well as imitation seafood such as imitation crab meat.
