"Travis McGee" > wrote in message
...
> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed...802-story.html
>
> How we went from beef on the hoof to mystery meat in a box
> By Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
>
> What with all the vegetarians, vegans and flexitarians around, you might
> be surprised to learn that we now consume more animal protein than ever:
> 200 pounds per person in 2000, up some 40 pounds since the backyard
> barbecues of the 1950s. But no longer do we gorge on porterhouses, racks
> of lamb, pork roasts or spareribs. Today, much of the animal protein we
> eat has been stripped from the bone, doctored with chemicals and reformed
> into breakfast patties, lunch nuggets and microwaveable entrees.
>
> Most people would attribute this shift to our squeamishness about
> slaughtering, butchering and preparing meat, and to our puerile taste
> buds.
>
> But consumer preferences are not what led supermarkets to carry
> refashioned animal tissue. The Ur-culprit here is the U.S. Army, which
> since the early 20th century has been on a relentless quest to reduce the
> cost of the meat it feeds soldiers. Demand, in this story, followed
> supply.
>
> For centuries, having a bone in our dinner had been an insurance policy -
> an indispensable feature for quick and easy identification of the animal
> and body part in question, as well as a vital clue as to its overall
> fitness for consumption. Only the poor gnawed on unrecognizable remnants,
> mostly in stews and soups.
>
> Then came World War I. The military and its meatpacking friends in Chicago
> suddenly found that they needed to supply 4.7 million troops with a pound
> of protein a day. Obviously it couldn't send whole carcasses overseas -
> not in such large quantities. Desperate to keep supplies running, the
> Army's Quartermaster Corps asked itself: Could it go against humankind's
> antipathy to barrels of unidentifiable chunks and scraps, long disdained
> as containing tainted meat?
>
> In 1918, the Army - with the help of Lt. Jay Hormel (doesn't that name
> sound familiar?) - set up a beef processing plant and distribution system
> centered in Chicago. The results caused Army bigwigs to do a little jig: a
> quarter-carcass weighed 25% less without its bones, fat and cartilage.
> When frozen into a rectangular solid, wrapped in burlap and waxed paper,
> and stacked, it occupied 60% less space on crowded trains and ships.
>
> By World War II, the Chicago meatpacking companies Armour and Swift had
> gotten in on the act, working with the Navy Veterinary Department to
> invent more efficient deboning techniques, sort the meat by class and
> flash freeze the flesh so that it maintained a fresh appearance and
> texture.
> Thanks to the military, we no longer demand bodily evidence as to the
> origins and wholesomeness of our dinner. -
>
> Crowed the War Department in 1946: "Military advances in beef processing
> have made the beef ration a reality almost everywhere our present global
> Army may be. The Army has put boneless beef - frozen fresh and packed . on
> a basis where further experimentation is not necessary. It is now ready
> for civilian use."
>
> Not quite.
>
> In fact, it took the rise of the supermarket, and the replacement of the
> old meatpacking business model (traditional butchery by tradesmen in
> cities along train lines) with a new one (assembly-line butchery by
> unskilled workers near rural feedlots along the federal highway system)
> before civilians accepted the economic and practical benefits of boxed,
> boneless meat. From 1963 to 2002, the percentage of boxed beef shipped
> from the nation's largest slaughterhouses increased from less than 10% to
> 60% of total sales, and now accounts for more than 90% of the beef sold in
> supermarkets.
>
> The military didn't stop with deboning. As soon as boxed meat was widely
> available, Army brass set itself the modest goal of reducing the meat bill
> 60%. It would buy the cheapest parts and figure out a way to make them
> look and taste like the more desirable whole-muscle cuts.
>
> Military food scientists went into the laboratory and began to fiddle, as
> well as to contract with universities and industry for outside research.
> They and their collaborators improved meat flaking equipment, invented
> meat glue (a mixture of meat ooze, salt and other chemicals), and
> discovered that adding phosphate improved juiciness, texture and flavor.
> Together, these developments allowed them to paste together bits and
> scraps that could then be molded into a chop, cutlet or steak tasting
> roughly like the real thing.
>
> By 1972, the Army's fake-muscle-cuts project had successfully manufactured
> pilot runs of grill steaks, Swiss steaks, minute steaks and breakfast
> steaks. It started serving the troops restructured veal cutlets in 1976,
> followed by lamb and pork chops and, somewhat later, beefsteaks. Soon,
> these Frankenfoods were standard fare in the MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat).
>
> Once the military had accomplished its goal, it stepped back, letting the
> private sector replace the government as the chief promoter and developer
> of restructured meat, its appetite whetted by the value-added proposition
> of making something from practically nothing.
>
> University and industry food science departments looked for ways to
> further reduce manufacturing costs. This included hot deboning (while the
> corpse is still steaming), de-sinewing, mechanical separation (pushing a
> carcass through a sieve), blending fat and trim into protein "sludge," and
> collection of plasma for use as a plumper. Items produced using these
> exotic techniques debuted in fast-food restaurants, and appeared a bit
> later in the frozen foods section and then finally in the supermarket
> refrigerator case.
>
> Consumption of restructured meat products exploded in the 1990s and the
> early years of the 2000s, so much so that in 1997, the Census Bureau had
> to add a new industry code - nonpoultry meat processing - which that year
> generated $24 billion in sales. By 2007, it accounted for $37 billion.
>
> Americans began the 20th century clinging to their T-bones and prime ribs.
> But, thanks to the military, we no longer demand bodily evidence as to the
> origins and wholesomeness of our dinner. We have even learned to prefer
> eating animals in the forms pioneered by the Army: boneless and
> restructured. Bon appetit, America.
>
> Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is the author of "Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the
> U.S. Military Shaped the Way You Eat."

"From 1963 to 2002, the percentage of boxed beef shipped
from the nation's largest slaughterhouses increased from less than 10% to
60% of total sales, and now accounts for more than 90% of the beef sold in
supermarkets."

This article makes it sound like "boxed beef" is all mystery meats. Most of
the boxed beef are factory produced standard cuts, such as a box of NY
steaks, etc.