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How Fast Food Providers Beat Inflation - Add Wood Pulp To Burgers
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
On Monday, Quartz published an article by Devin Cohen titled, There is a Secret Ingredient in Your Burgers: Wood Pulp. Given the headline and people’s already present suspicion regarding all of the shady and potentially dangerous ingredients hidden in food items, the article gained a lot of traction. In subsequent days, most journalists and bloggers have focused on the dangers of this additive (unclear) and whether or not it is pervasive throughout the food chain as opposed to just fast food (it appears to be).
The one angle that has not been explored as much is the overall trend. Let’s go ahead and assume that wood pulp is a safe thing to consume, it certainly seems to have no nutritional value whatsoever. So why are companies inserting it into food items? To mask inflation and earn more profits most likely. This was a major theme I focused on last year in a series of pieces on stealth inflation and food fraud, a couple of which can be read below:
New Study Shows 59% of “Tuna” Sold in the U.S. Isn’t Tuna
New Study Shows: Food Fraud Soared 60% Last Year
The Quartz article notes that:
There may be more fiber in your food than you realized. Burger King, McDonald’s and other fast food companies list in the ingredients of several of their foods, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) or “powdered cellulose” as components of their menu items. Or, in plain English, wood pulp.
The emulsion-stabilizing, cling-improving, anti-caking substance operates under multiple aliases, ranging from powdered cellulose to cellulose powder to methylcellulose to cellulose gum. The entrance of this non-absorbable fiber into fast food ingredients has been stealthy, yet widespread: The compound can now be found in buns, cheeses, sauces, cakes, shakes, rolls, fries, onion rings, smoothies, meats—basically everything.
The cost effectiveness of this filler has pushed many chains to use progressively less chicken in their “chicken” and cream in their “ice cream.”
This is the part that really interests me. When did these companies first introduce this substance into their products and what is the growth trend? My guess is that as food costs have risen, the proportion of non-nutritonal fillers has increased substantially. That said, I’d like to see some data and I haven’t yet.
My big takeaway here is the same as last year’s when I first started writing about the trend. As the cost of food continues to rise, the cost of not paying attention to what you are eating rises exponentially. Companies will continue to try to mask inflation by shrinking package sizes, and when that is no longer possible, increasingly inserting empty fillers (or worse) into their products.
Meanwhile, the following video is a telling spoof on the ingredients in McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets.
On a related note, if you haven’t read my recent post on BPA, definitely take the time: National Geographic Reports – Chemicals Causing Infertility in Pigs are Present Throughout Human Consumer Goods.
Bon Appétit.
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+1 i see what you did there
Barking ehh burgering up the wrong tree ?
Mc Donalds new slogan> " Made from the finest Siberian sawdust"...
Allied prisoners in WWII and Korea got plenty of wood pulp in their bread - consider this to be a test by FEMA of their new camp recipe cookbook.
This is not news. Wood pulp has been used as filler for a long time. The cheap ice cream I buy is a weird mixture of sugar, wood pulp, flavors, and water. Real ice cream is quite expensive because it's made with real cream. Real ice cream is basically butter, so it's expensive like butter. Naturally, our bullshit government compares the cost of real ice cream from 1980 to the price of wood pulp ice cream today then concludes there's no inflation.
It's strange how the value of natural things doesn't change much over the years. Real fur is just as expensive today as it was 100 years ago. Same with gold. If we wanted an accurate measure of inflation, the basket would contain little or no manufactured goods. Look at the prices of cotton, iron, copper, nickel, gold, silver, oil, wheat, rice, beef, etc. That will give you an accurate measure of inflation.
It's about quantity not quality silly. </sarc>
But that would make people sad. :((
Our rulers want us to be happy! :)) The way inflation is measured now makes people happy.
The End.
New recycled compressed McD hamburger boards to replace plywood for roofs.
Hey! I have an idea!
Waterboarding at Mickie D's!!!
Craig
We seem to be ignoring the main important question - is it GMO wood pulp or not?
More importantly is whether the wood pulp is organic.
NO ONE should be consuming ground meats...unless you've ground them YOURSELF!
I wish I could post that in 6 inch-high letters, in neon colors...
DON'T DO IT!!!
Buy chuck cubes, or any other fairly lean cuts (get 'em on sale) keep them frozen till you need them. Then defrost, and run the meat through your OWN grinder when you want burgers, etc. It is EASY! It takes minutes...this isn't like grinding your own flour, people...EVERYONE can do this.
Prepackeged ground 'meat' is the food equivalent of street meth...you have NO idea what's really in it.
If possible (join a local CSA) only buy LOCAL Free Range Beef.
Free Range Pigs
Free Range Chicken
From your LOCAL farmer.
Find one here http://www.localharvest.org/ (Key in Zip code)
Killing two birds with one stone.
Starving Monsanto, ConAgra, ArcherDanialMidland et al
and Supporting a LOCAL Farm Family.
Don't you know that those people are terrorists?
Rabbits!!! Best meat out there, if you can find it. Easy to raise rabbits too, and when time comes to dress them out, the fur comes off in one piece easily! And, if you learn how to process the fur, it is very warm and soft.
Eat more rabbit.
(sorry Bugs)
Craig
Best part is the butchering. The whole family chasing them around the yard with tire irons and axe handles, the laughter, the carnage, the blood.
Good times.
@Bemused - If you are implying you can protect yourself simply by grinding your own meat, then you are both reading comprehension challenged and a dumb ass.
Shit shit is in nearly every manufactured product. You need to read labels and be very picky. But readin is hard ain't it, dumb ass?
If you eat fast food you deserve whatever you get...
soon they'll just make your burger out of dirt with a little grease added.
Microcrystalline cellulose, but usually tiny tiny amounts. Silicon dioxide (glass), yum! Titanium dioxide. Carnauba wax. Brominated rosin of wood esters. Ethylene glycol. The tears of a clown.
Why add meat? That seems superflous at this point.
Pretty soon the only meat added will be from dumb ass flies that crash land into the grinder.
The land of the free!
Not allowed in many other countries, but since the US sheeple are so proud of free, unregulated markets, they get what they deserve.
MOAR REGULATION...yeah...dats what we need is moar regulation! That will fix this! There already are "regulations", it's called FRAUD and litigation and labeling of ingredients. If you can't read then get some moar schooling.
Just cook self from scratch, then you're safe. Don't go out.
I'll bet they'll fnd a bunch of adulterated staples as well. Anything coming from a foreign / multinational company is suspect these days.
Called it food or dietary fibers, that sounds healthy (and is ok for digestion in moderate doses). But knawing on a saw dust burger, no thanks. As long as it's just MODERATE doses, no problem IMHO. So what is the dosage???
This may be the answer to those pesky porcupines that like to chew on the sides of people's houses around here.
Cotton, merino wool cashmere and other commodities are creeping up and expect to pay more for them next year. I notice 100% cotton shirts have gone from $55 to $65 and now many brands are $70 or more.
Merino wool sweaters (which, in my opinion are softer and easier to care for then cahsmere) have gone from $55 to $65 and this year $85 and my friend at a local retail store says next year over $90 if they can even get them.
He said expect more synthentic stuff and lower quality.
And yet the CPI remains almost flat zero.
Wood chips are probably even harmless compared to BPA, phthalates, hormones, pesticides such as glyphosate (found in breast milk and urine), GMO, etc. that are persistent in our 'food chain'.
Obviously you missed this part of how they make wood chips into cellulose that is then put into our food.
Methyl cellulose does not occur naturally and is synthetically produced by heating cellulose with caustic solution (e.g. a solution of sodium hydroxide) (Sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda,[3][4] or lye) and treating it with methyl chloride.
Chloromethane, also called methyl chloride, R-40 or HCC 40, is a chemical compound of the group of organic compounds called haloalkanes. It was once widely used as a refrigerant.
A wink for the Devil and a word to the wise,
Just another day in Paradise,
Gonna double down, gonna SuperSize(TM)
Truth is Poison, in the Empire of Lies.
About the only fiber in the great American land whale's diet.
Anonymous prophesy from August 2010:
"By what possible mechanism will consumers get those wads of $100,000 dollar bills to buy the $500,000 Happy Meal? They can't and won't. The financial/asset economy is where the Fed plays and anything that happens in the real transaction for goods and services economy is just a second order trickle down affair. Various and sundry commodities or financial assets may explode higher but higher prices for consumer goods will just see demand destruction. Before McDonald's has the $100,000 Quarter Pounder they will have the Sawdust burger with lard glaze for $3."
Sawdust - cheaper than High Fructose Corn Syrup and better for you, too!
What's not to like?
The wood is probably one of the safest ingredients.
Hell, it's basically free integrated Metamucil so I'm all for it.
"Where's the wood?!"
A solid portion of veggies. Wood is a plant. YummyMeUp.
The Surprising Leading Contributor to Pollution: Agriculture-
Keynote speech Vandana Shiva (58:26) Food Otherwise conference in Wageningen (NL) on 21 February 2014. Monopolies, centralization and monocultures go hand and hand and they are the instruments of power. We have to create instruments of democracy, diversity, resilience. http://vimeo.com/90003852
....here's the really exciting part: if land that is bare, degraded, tilled, or monocropped can be restored to a healthy condition, with properly functioning carbon, water, mineral, and nutrient cycles, and covered year-round with a diversity of green plants with deep roots, then the added amount of atmospheric CO2 that can be stored in the soil is potentially high. Globally... soils contain about three times the amount of carbon that's stored in vegetation and twice the amount stored in the atmosphere. Since two-thirds of the earth's land mass is grassland, additional CO2 storage in the soil via better management practices, even on a small scale, could have a huge impact. http://carbonpilgrim.wordpress.com
The easiest thing that anyone can do is to simply stop buying processed foods (including organic traitor brands, which are actually owned by multi-national processed food giants). http://www.theboycottlist.org
"no nutritional value" !?
You callin' Euell Gibbons a liar?
So long as its not Chinese wood fiber. No telling what fake, dog killing crap they put into their wood filler fake crap filler crap that would get into our ammonia washed squeezed pink slime Amerkin burger like burger product.
So now we know where the old bus-sized masses of congealed butt-wipes that are fished out of sewers end up.
\THE CIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIFE
Fuck these fast food corporate cunts and warren buffet too. They kill so many people every year with their Toxic shit and huge sugar COKES.
They should market it as a fiber supplement... Now you have a choice besides White Castles to clean you out.
Heart disease is right up there with the number one killers.Just remember that before you chow-down.Surprised they're not importing it all from Communist China?Or is the American Government sending it all aroung the globe to turn everyone into fat sows?
The cookies from the vending machine taste just like sawdust. I wonder.
Don't worry
Big government is TAKING GOOD CARE OF YOU..........
Wood Pulp + Pink Slime =
Winner winner, slimy sawdust dinner!
In the book series "Deathlands", by James Axler, there is a story about a future parallel earth (in 2110 or something like that) where WWIII never happened as it did in the "Deathlands" where the nukes wiped out 90+% of the population. In this parallel earth humanity has grown to over 100 billion people. The scientists (called white-coats) working for the elites in the parallel earth develop an edible form of rock powder to placate the starving masses. They call the rock-food "tater-cheesies" and "beefie-cheesies". The only problem is that after eating the stuff for only a few days it causes severe side-effects like bleeding from the rectum and irreversible brain damage in the form of violent psychosis. Maybe this is next for us proles . . .
OMG... honest advertising !!!
What will they think of next?
:-)
More alarmism and playing to the gag reflex by food nannies. There's plenty of things we eat that would sound awfully disgusting if we think too much about where they came from.
Yeast is fungus, you know. Just like that stuff that grows in your shower and under your toenails. I guess you shouldn't eat leavened bread or drink beer (the alcohol of which is literally fungus excrement) either.
And that natural honey you treasure is pollen that was eaten and regurgitated by bugs. Yum yum.
How many people are going to starve in the third world this year because of the food nannies' crusade against "pink slime" (before we even get to the anti-GMO idiocy)? You may not have grease on your hands but there is plenty of blood.
Send all the pink slime to this guy.
Keep it away from me!
Fortunately, I don't live in the USSA any more, and all the food around here is natural and organic and not filled with any nonsense.
They don't even need to say "organic" around here, because that's all there is. Unless, of course, you purposely go seek out a monster store over 250 miles from here, then purposely hunt down some imported packaged food from western companies. If you do, you deserve what you get. And you'll eventually get it good and sickly.
PS: Nobody objects to stupid humans eating anything they want, including abject JUNK. As long it is clearly identified, labeled and marketed as whatever it is, not maximally obscured.
For example, chicken == chicken plus NOTHING.
For example, beef == beef plus NOTHING.
Recognize the pattern?
LOL, people are starving because there's not enough pink slime.
Hey, shit head. People are starving because they have 14 kids and enough food for MAYBE one. Just unthinking animals, really.
According to the current ideology, making a buck is our fucking purpose of life, and the system says it just doesn't matter how you make that buck - selling your virgin pussy, selling your labor dropping bombs, selling your poison as food. It just doesn't matter at all according to this totally fucking irrational system. The capitalist's argument is that since God is dead everthing is permitted. Fuck them.