In the wake of the horse meat scandal spreading throughout Europe — which misled consumers about what animals they've even been eating, exactly— eaters around the world are taking a much closer look at what's under their hamburger buns.
Though there is a lot of murkiness surrounding the large-scale production of beef, many investigations have already dredged-up some not-so-appetizing facts about the meat supply chain.
Here, we take a look at five facts you may not want to know about processed beef.
1. It's been hanging out with ammonia.
Remember the whole "pink slime" scandal that exploded last April?
Well, that slimy texture of ground beef is caused by ammonia hydroxide, a chemical solution used in cleaning products that also happens to be very effective for killing bacteria in fatty beef trimmings that often find their way into burgers, TLC's Planet Green blog reported.
"Everything about this process, to me, is about no respect for food, or people, or children, and I'd want to know when I'm eating this stuff," Jamie Oliver, a chef and host of "Food Revolution," said of the practice, CTV News reported. "And I'd want it clearly labeled."
For now, however, it's not. Though major fast food chains like Burger King and McDonald's have sworn off the stuff, the company behind the practice (Beef Products Inc., based out of South Dakota) produces over 7 million pounds of ground beef a week — easily making it the world's largest frozen ground beef producer, according to TLC.
2. It's one of the main culprits behind water pollution.
The US Environmental Protection Agency is abundantly clear on the effect of beef production, AKA Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs), on the environment.
Their report on the subject found that AFOs contributes in part to the impairment of at least 170,750 river miles, 2,417,801 lake acres, and 1,827 estuary square miles across the United States.
"Agriculture was reported to be the most common pollutant of rivers and streams," they reported.
In addition, a study published in the Journal of Animal Science found that it takes as much as 3,682 liters of water to produce 2.2 pounds of boneless beef in the US.
3. It comes from a lot of different cows. As in, hundreds.
Ground beef doesn't come neatly from just one cow — modern manufacturing plants receive cows from all across the US and the world, and often churn out 800,000 pounds of hamburger meat a day, BBC News reported.
That means that single hamburger could be sourced from tens, even hundreds of different animals — which makes tracking down the source of e. coli outbreaks and other food health emergencies tricky.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider