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Comment by SECProto | Hacker News Reader

> Food production is really, really complex. If an organic burrito was labelled with every process involved in its production, it would come with a label the size of a telephone directory.

I agree with this take in general. But in labelling a product "ground beef", a consumer would consider the ingredients to be beef that is ground. Separating the meat from the fat in trimmings is good (use more of the meat please!), but the process is not grinding. If the market determines "heat-separated ground beef" (or whatever) to be less appealing, then perhaps they're right that it should demand a lower markup.

It's about nomenclature, not safety.

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> Separating the meat from the fat in trimmings is good (use more of the meat please!), but the process is not grinding.

What does it mean exactly to be ground? When I look at their product, it looks like it's come out of a meat grinder to me. What does that have to do with the process of separating the fat from the meat which is what is in question here?

>What does it mean exactly to be ground?

Not sure what the exact definition would be but I certainly wouldn’t assume it to be ‘ammonia treated slurry flash-frozen on 20ft rollers’. My mind trends toward those old school funnel-top hand-cranked meat grinders when I hear “ground”. Obviously they aren’t hand-cranking the stuff but what I saw on the video on the linked page is far from what I expect when thinking of ground.

> What does it mean exactly to be ground? When I look at their product, it looks like it's come out of a meat grinder to me.

I can show you some incredible fake and inedible food that looks just like the real thing. Appearance isn't really a good measure for what something is.

As for what it means to grind: "To reduce to smaller pieces by crushing with lateral motion." I don't think the process meets any reasonable definition of ground.

I'd probably personally buy it, but I'd really want it to be labeled in some other way.

So the argument here is that it's mislabeled because it wasn't crushed with a lateral motion? And that's misleading to customers?

I think the argument is more that consumers have a very specific idea about what constitutes ground beef: a few specific cuts of beef put through a meat grinder. Full stop.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using the whole cow so to speak -- people love chicken nuggets and hot dogs -- but you should at least be upfront about the difference. If I tried to pass off a tub of 'pink slime' as ground beef in a kitchen I would would get thrown out.

But the key is that the same cuts are used for this product. They're just separated from the fat more efficiently. It's not a different cut, it's just recovered in a different way. They could then choose to grind it afterward or not, but either way that is something which just affects the final shape/texture of the product and I don't think the mechanics of how it is shaped is what is really bothering people about BPI's product.

It’s not simply recovered in a different way. Send a several pounds to a lab and the difference is easy to detect.

You can argue that said difference is meaningless, but that’s what markets are there to decide and misleading labels rob markets of pricing power by hiding information from consumers.

IMO, it really comes down to planned economics vs free markets. Producers hate free markets as a rule, but avoiding them has real costs.

From the regulations linked in the article:

‘‘Chopped Beef’’ or ‘‘Ground Beef’’ shall consist of chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders. When beef cheek meat (trimmed beef cheeks) is used in the preparation of chopped or ground beef, the amount of such cheek meat shall be limited to 25 percent; and if in ex- cess of natural proportions, its presence shall be declared on the label[...].

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