Saline Injected Meat

[Laury]

Thanks ChefJune. The first farmer's Market of the season near me has opening day on Saturday. They have several natural meat purveyors that will be getting my business from now on.
And ROBO410, I don't know if you were being a little tongue-in-cheek about the "moist and tender", but to me it's just a marketing gimmick to make you think that "wet and salty" in the same as moist and tender. Like you, I want my meat as pure as possible and I'll decide how to flavor it.
Foodies unite!!!

 

[kitchenelf]

I, personally, like to brine my own meat. That way I can control what goes into the brine. With that being said, I prefer my non-cooking friends go ahead and buy injected meat, that way I won't choke

Laury, it's not that this issue hasn't gotten a rise out of us foodies...it's simply that this practice has been going on for a VERY long time and we've all resolved this issue in our own ways.

I will have to disagree with your statement that it is only to make the product wet and salty. As long as the added, odd-tasting preservatives are held in check I'm usually ok with it. It does make whatever is injected more moist and more tender. That's a simple fact of brining. If you brined at home would you consider your finished product simply wet and salty? No, you would consider it more moist, more tender, more flavorful.

 

[jennyema]

And ROBO410, I don't know if you were being a little tongue-in-cheek about the "moist and tender", but to me it's just a marketing gimmick to make you think that "wet and salty" in the same as moist and tender.

Brining doesn't make meat wet and salty. It does, in fact, make it moist and tender.

It's just basic food science. Why Brining Keeps Meat So Moist - Fine Cooking Article

What you might be objecting to are any preservatives or flavorings they add in addition to the salt.

 

[Laury]

I don't brine meat. To me salt does not equal flavor per se. It is a flavor enhancer. I like the natural sweet character left intact. (Even seafood is naturally sweet, not salty.) I then use the juices and fond to make sauces etc. that add the salt and flavor to the meat. To me it's the combination in the mouth of the sweet meat and the salt in the sauce or skin that makes the dish so good. When the saline runs throughout the meat it just tasted like salty water to me. It doesn't taste moist, it tastes wet. It's a poor substitute for the fat that has been bred out of so many meats. I feel that most of us have forgotten what chicken, pork and beef tasted like before all the tinkering started happening. When my non-cooking friends serve me something bland, I put salt on it, gag it down and put a smile on my face. Mostly I do the cooking anyway. I agree that the practice has been around a long time, but it is way more prevalent than even five years ago. We've (as a society) been conditioned to prefer meat that has been plumped up with salt water.
I guess, as always, it's all about personal preference. I will always lean in the direction of using the "purest" form of any product and then seasoning it to my own tastes.

 

[GrillingFool]

A while back, I complained to Tyson Chicken about their "100% Natural Chicken", which is injected with brine and chemicals.

Their answer, in a nutshell, was that "taste tests" had determined that the average consumer PREFERRED their chicken to be "enhanced."

I would be willing to bet that the test was carefully contrived to favor the "enhanced".

 

[Laury]

From the article post by jennyema - "Properly brined meat shouldn't taste salty, just very juicy with good flavor."

Maybe this is the crux of the matter. The supermarket meats DO taste salty. Since I don't brine meat as I thought they would end up tasting like the supermarket crap, it appears that I should experiment at home with unadulterated meat. I have had home brined meat served to me, but it must have brined too long as it was salty. I have also shared meals that had commercially "plumped" meat and I seemed to be the only one who objected to the salty nature of it. So I will try brining in the future and report back the results. I hope to find that there is a huge difference between home brined meat and the storebought stuff.

 

[jennyema]

Glad you're willing to give brining a chance.

A properly home-brined turkey or pork chop is a beautiful thing. Not wet. Not salty. But juicy and savory.

In addition, using sugar in your brine cuts the "salty" and enhances the "savory" flavors.

 

[kitchenelf]

Laury, does your supermaket carry a Smart Chicken? WOW - they are wonderful. THAT'S what chicken is supposed to taste like!!!! It's not brined, not injected, just left alone to grow to it's NORMAL, NATURAL size. That's one bird I will not brine, it's perfect, the way chickens used to be!

I think the cheaper the chicken the more enhanced with the wrong ingredients it is. I went for a bag of ridiculously inexpensive bone-in chicken breasts - YUCK!!!!!!! All preservative tasting and nothing else. I ended up throwing it out.

At home brining is a wonderful thing for the right product.

 

[Laury]

I'll definitely look for it. What chains stores do you have that carry it? Is it a whole bird or parts? I'd love to try it. My kingdom for a "chickeny" chicken!

 

[jennyema]

Bell and Evans is a great brand of quality "chickeny" chicken.

 

[ChefJune]

My MIL can buy an injected bird though and when I eat at her house I am happy because even when she under seasons and over cooks it then it still tastes pretty good.

Heheheh. GB, you have an excellent point there!

 

[Uncle Bob]

Well of course it is about Money. No one is in business to not make money. That is why they sell things. They would not be in business very long if they were not making money. There can be more than one reason why companies do things though and with injecting meat there is also flavor and texture and moistness to consider.

+1 !!! Exactly!! What's wrong with a company making a profit!! Can you think of any companies that you wished were making money?? I can think of several!! Check out your investment portfolio...Check out the unemployment numbers in your area....

IMO greed, nor trying to make excessive profits is not what really started this whole process, it is/was Consumer driven. ..Sometime in the distant past....in the 80"s...or was it the 70's?? Some of you old timers will remember Anyway, healthcare professionals were advocating less fat in your/our diet... People (Consumers) went on an anti fat kick. Everyone became fat conscious...People wanted less fat in their diets...they wanted less fats in everything they ate or drank....(Smart).Companies responded by making their products with less fats or either created a whole line of new“Low Fat”/”Reduced Fat” products to meet Consumer demands. This is what companies do who want to stay in business and make a profit. Pork and poultry producers/farmers followed suit. They began a selective breeding program to produce animals that had less fat. This was not an over night process...it took decades to arrive at the animals that are produced today. The pork industry in particular started to breed leaner hogs. The National Pork Board has reported that the average pork loin on the market in 1982 was 64% leaner than one in 1970. The fat content of pork has continued to drop -- albeit more slowly -- since then. ---- Again Consumers weren’t exactly happy! They wanted a pork chop that was moist, and tender, with little or no fat that had great flavor....(Like they used to taste in the “good-ole-days”) Again companies responded to Consumer demands in the only way they could.....They couldn’t put the fat back in to make it a moist, tender and flavorful pork chop....So they “Enhanced” the product with injections of basically water, (moisture) salt, (flavor), and sodium phosphate (moisture retention). “Enhanced” products have been around for decades...especially in pork and poultry. Somewhere around 2000 (I think) the beef industry got in on the process... albeit to a lesser extent. --- So IMO it’s not all about greed, profit, or something being left out. We, the consumer have gotten exactly what we’ve asked for....

If you don’t like enhanced meats be vocal about it....Call, write, complain etc. Don’t buy enhanced products...don’t shop in stores who don’t offer you a choice...In the end companies (still) do listen to consumer demands.

Have Fun!

 

[GrillingFool]

So I had occasion to buy a chicken today. Looked at Walmart and Krogers.. there was no chicken available that didn't have at least a 12% solution of brine.

So my 4.71 pound chicken had 12% brine added, that's .57 pounds of brine.
I paid 99 cents a pound, so the Tyson company made 56 cents on that brine solution.
Multiply that by a few millions of chickens, and that is quite a profit margin.

Kinda like the tail fat that is now left on chickens.. that probably added a few million to the bottom line too.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Things are not always as they seem. The 99 Cents per pound was at "retail" prices in Kroger or Walmart. Tyson's share would be at "wholesale" broiler prices...Considerably less than retail...Also the margins would be gross margins...not net margins which again are considerably less. Here is one indication of how they are really doing.

Enjoy!

 

[GrillingFool]

Irrelevant.
The company is injecting brine into their chicken. I'm paying chicken prices for salted water.
The WEIGHT of the item, which is the determinant of its PRICE, was increased by .57 pounds, for a gross price increase of 56 cents.
SOMEONE is making money off the brining process, or it wouldn't be done. Tyson is doing it.. ergo, Tyson is (attempting, perhaps) to make money from the process.
Simple business practice.

I don't like it.

 

[GB]

Tyson is doing it.. ergo, Tyson is (attempting, perhaps) to make money from the process.
Simple business practice.

I don't like it.

You don't like that a business is trying to make money off a business practice?

As UB pointed out before, this is being done because consumers wanted it done. First "we" made them start selling low fat varieties of what they were already offering, then when they did that and "we" found a loss of flavor and moisture "we" demanded a product that tasted better and was not as dry while still being lower in fat than what we used to have. The companies responded by introducing injected meats. This was done in response to consumer demand.

 

[Andy M.]

...The companies responded by introducing injected meats. This was done in response to consumer demand.

It's not that they responded to demand for better meats. It's the way they responded that's at issue.

 

[GB]

It's not that they responded to demand for better meats. It's the way they responded that's at issue.

What would be your suggestion for how they could respond to customer demand for a low fat, yet still juicy and flavorful product? Brining is a well known and well liked method at home and in restaurants so why is it that the company did something wrong in responding by offering basically a brined product?

 

[Laury]

Instead of injecting, why don't they just brine them to improve flavor? Could it be that brining won't increase the weight? And why can't they offer a choice of injected and non-injected?

 

[Andy M.]

What would be your suggestion for how they could respond to customer demand for a low fat, yet still juicy and flavorful product? Brining is a well known and well liked method at home and in restaurants so why is it that the company did something wrong in responding by offering basically a brined product?

Why? why don't you buy it?

The appropriate response would be to breed better tasting animals.