AboutCarol Schlitt Expertise I can answer questions on home food safety, sanitation, home food preservation and commercial food safety (HACCP).
Experience I am an Extension educator, nutrition, wellness and food safety. I am a certified HACCP manager and a food safety instructor for the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Organizations International Association for Food Protection, American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (Certified CFCS), National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Society for Nutrition Education.
Education/Credentials BS - University of Illinois
MS - Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
Question Hello,
On a resent excursion to the local supermarket I encounter on the list of ingredients;
Mechanically separated chicken
Am I to assume that ripped asunder by chicken killing robots is preferable and that slaughtered by humans is to be avoided? Or is this to inform me that no careful eye was watching Clucky’s final moments and so I might expect a bit of…bone fragments do to a lack of meticulous attention to detail?
Why not simple; Chicken? Why am I being informed of the specific method of the chickens untimely demise?
Thank you for your time.
Not that it’s keeping me up nights mind…but it is a vexingly strange choice of terminology.
R. Breath
Answer Hi Kevin,
Mechanically separated chicken is not referring to how the chicken died, but that the meat taken from the chicken carcass was done by machine -- not by hand.
According to the U.S.Food Safety and Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture, mechanically separated meat is a way of getting every last piece of meat from the bone of a chicken, turkey, or other food animal. Bones with edible meat attached are forced under high pressure through a device that separates the bone from the meat. It's a process that's been used since the 1960's and for a variety of popular products.
It is required by law that if the meat is mechanically taken from the bones it must be labeled as such -- that's why you see it specifically listed in the ingredients.
I hope this answers your questionl. If you have additional questions, please let me know.
