The history of all-Russian deception."

The topic of our latest investigation was the injection procedure - the injection of a special solution through needles that increases the volume of meat.

The translucent, whitish liquid for pumping up meat shown on NTV made a depressing impression on us, and for psychological support we turned to the deputy general director of one of the largest domestic companies producing those same mixtures for injecting, Alexey Izmailov.

Alexey reassured us by saying that “meat processing is one of the most strictly state-controlled branches of the food industry, and if anything in the components of the solution posed a danger, it would have been banned a long time ago.”

Do you yourself eat meat pumped with such a solution?

Certainly. You must understand that now you can only get unsquirted meat from your grandmother in the village. Everything else, including markets, has already been pumped up. Both domestic production and imported.

What is included in this solution?

What you call “solution” is correctly called brine. They inject meat not only so that it increases in volume. More precisely, not so much for this purpose. This mixture has two sides - technological and economic.

From a technological point of view, brine is a complex complex of additives, each of which has its own purpose. For example, the composition of a typical brine used to syringe meat: stabilizers (E 450, E 451), gelling agent (E 407), dextrose, flavor and aroma enhancer (E 621), antioxidant (E 301), thickener (E 415), extracts spices.

Stabilizers are phosphates that stabilize the pH (acidity level). For meat, this parameter varies greatly from batch to batch, since it greatly depends on what the cows and pigs ate in the last weeks of their lives. If the acidity is not stabilized, the meat will be extremely dry and will not retain moisture.

The gelling agent is the same carrageenan, an extract from seaweed. Everyone has probably encountered the fact that algae, which seem large and dense in water, dry out and become almost weightless when they land. This property is used here - one part of carrageenan powder can take 25-40 parts of water, forming a gel. This additive is added to the brine to ensure that the product has an elastic, “rubber” consistency.

Dextrose is the same as glucose, sugar. Added in small quantities for taste.

Flavor and aroma enhancer – monosodium glutamate. Well, why it is needed is quite clear.

Antioxidant - is introduced to ensure that the meat does not lose color and is stored longer.
The thickener - usually guar gum (powder from the fruit of the guar tree growing in India) - has similar properties to carrageenans and is used in diapers and pads. It is added to improve consistency and additional moisture binding.

Spice extracts are natural concentrated extracts that are added to add flavor notes. Regular ascorbic acid or its derivatives, sodium ascorbate, are used as an antioxidant.

This is what concerns the technological side of the issue. I repeat: with the help of these additives we create the consistency of the meat product, juiciness, color and taste.

Well, the economic side is that some of these additives allow you to retain the water pumped into the meat. The cost and, as a consequence, the price of the product naturally depends on the amount of this water. Technologists at enterprises inject products not out of natural malice, but for one simple reason - if this is not done, then firstly, the meat will be a little dry and bland and in a couple of days it will acquire a characteristic weathered color. Well, and secondly, because it will be very expensive and not every consumer will be able to call it. So this is a forced measure, for which we ourselves vote with our wallets.

And how much water is added to the meat?

If we take it by the amount of moisture added, we can make the following gradation (not by meat, but by the finished product - a delicacy such as ham or carbonated meat):
Expensive “delicacy” (beef, pork) – moisture is injected up to 30% of the mass of the meat.
Middle segment – ​​35-50% by weight of meat

Budget segment - 60-80% moisture is introduced.
Due to the structural features of poultry meat, it is impossible to inject more than 25-30% moisture into chicken delicacies.
Chopped ham in a polyamide casing can be filled with more than 80% water.
This is what the economy is like.

That is, when buying products from the budget segment, as you called it, people get more water and less nutrients, less amino acids, vitamins, the things for which a person actually eats meat?

I want to tell you, as a marketer with many years of experience, this is this: only bodybuilders and other extreme radicals eat amino acids and vitamins in meat. A normal person eats meat in order to taste the meat, get the sensation of chewing the meat, feel a feeling of satiety and be aware of the fact that he has eaten meat. And how much of something there is – water or proteins – doesn’t really matter to him. If you calculate it in grams of protein per ruble, then it turns out that what you eat is approximately the same - better and more expensive, or cheaper but with water. People are fully aware of this, but they themselves play this game, precisely because they expect from food what I said, and not amino acids and proteins.

following the footsteps of the sensational project of the NTV channel
"Meat. The history of all-Russian deception." The topic of our latest investigation was the injection procedure - the injection of a special solution through needles that increases the volume of meat.

The translucent, whitish liquid for pumping up meat shown on NTV made a depressing impression on us, and for psychological support we turned to the deputy general director of one of the largest domestic companies producing those same mixtures for injecting, Alexey Izmailov.

Alexey reassured us by saying that “meat processing is one of the most strictly state-controlled branches of the food industry, and if anything in the components of the solution posed a danger, it would have been banned a long time ago.”

Do you yourself eat meat pumped with such a solution?

Certainly. You must understand that now you can only get unsquirted meat from your grandmother in the village. Everything else, including markets, has already been pumped up. Both domestic production and imported.

What is included in this solution?

What you call “solution” is correctly called brine. They inject meat not only so that it increases in volume. More precisely, not so much for this purpose. This mixture has two sides - technological and economic.

From a technological point of view, brine is a complex complex of additives, each of which has its own purpose. For example, the composition of a typical brine used to syringe meat: stabilizers (E 450, E 451), gelling agent (E 407), dextrose, flavor and aroma enhancer (E 621), antioxidant (E 301), thickener (E 415), extracts spices.

Stabilizers are phosphates that stabilize the pH (acidity level). For meat, this parameter varies greatly from batch to batch, since it greatly depends on what the cows and pigs ate in the last weeks of their lives. If the acidity is not stabilized, the meat will be extremely dry and will not retain moisture.

The gelling agent is the same carrageenan, an extract from seaweed. Everyone has probably encountered the fact that algae, which seem large and dense in water, dry out and become almost weightless when they land. This property is used here - one part of carrageenan powder can take 25-40 parts of water, forming a gel. This additive is added to the brine to ensure that the product has an elastic, “rubber” consistency.

Dextrose is the same as glucose, sugar. Added in small quantities for taste.
Flavor and aroma enhancer - monosodium glutamate. Well, why it is needed is quite clear.
Antioxidant - is introduced to ensure that the meat does not lose color and is stored longer.
The thickener - usually guar gum (powder from the fruit of the guar tree growing in India) - has similar properties to carrageenans and is used in diapers and pads. It is added to improve consistency and additional moisture binding.

Spice extracts are natural concentrated extracts added to add flavor notes. Regular ascorbic acid or its derivatives - sodium ascorbate - are used as an antioxidant.

This is what concerns the technological side of the issue. I repeat: with the help of these additives we create the consistency of the meat product, juiciness, color and taste.

Well, the economic side is that some of these additives allow you to retain the water pumped into the meat. The cost and, as a consequence, the price of the product naturally depends on the amount of this water. Technologists at enterprises do not inject products out of natural malice, but for one simple reason - if this is not done, then firstly, the meat will be somewhat dry and bland and in a couple of days it will acquire a characteristic weathered color. Well, and secondly, because it will be very expensive and not every consumer will be able to call it. So this is a forced measure, for which we ourselves vote with our wallets.

And how much water is added to the meat?

If we take it by the amount of moisture added, we can make the following gradation (not by meat, but by the finished product - a delicacy such as ham or carbonate):
Expensive “delicacy” (beef, pork) - moisture is injected up to 30% of the mass of the meat.
Middle segment - 35-50% by weight of meat
Budget segment - 60-80% moisture is introduced.
Due to the structural features of poultry meat, it is impossible to inject more than 25-30% moisture into chicken delicacies.
Chopped ham in a polyamide casing can be filled with more than 80% water.
This is what the economy is like.

That is, when buying products from the budget segment, as you called it, people get more water and less nutrients, less amino acids, vitamins, the things for which a person actually eats meat?

I want to tell you, as a marketer with many years of experience, this is this: only bodybuilders and other extreme radicals eat amino acids and vitamins in meat. A normal person eats meat in order to taste the meat, get the sensation of chewing the meat, feel a feeling of satiety and be aware of the fact that he has eaten meat. And how much of something there is - water or proteins - doesn’t really matter to him. If you calculate it in grams of protein per ruble, then it turns out that what you eat is approximately the same - better and more expensive, or cheaper but with water. People are fully aware of this, but they themselves play this game, precisely because they expect from food what I said, and not amino acids and proteins.

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The website continues the series of publications
following the footsteps of the sensational project of the NTV channel
"Meat. The history of all-Russian deception." The topic of our latest investigation was the injection procedure - the injection of a special solution through needles that increases the volume of meat.

The translucent whitish liquid for pumping up meat shown on NTV made a strong impression on us, and for clarification we turned to the deputy general director of one of the largest domestic companies producing those same mixtures for injecting, Alexey Izmailov.

Alexey reassured us by saying that “meat processing is one of the most strictly state-controlled branches of the food industry, and if anything in the components of the solution posed a danger, it would have been banned a long time ago.”

- Do you yourself eat meat pumped with such a solution?

Certainly. You must understand that now you can only get unsquirted meat from your grandmother in the village. Everything else, including markets, has already been pumped up. Both domestic production and imported.

- What is included in this solution?

What you call “solution” is correctly called brine. They inject meat not only so that it increases in volume. More precisely, not so much for this purpose. This mixture has two sides - technological and economic.

From a technological point of view, brine is a complex complex of additives, each of which has its own purpose. For example, the composition of a typical brine used to syringe meat: stabilizers (E 450, E 451), gelling agent (E 407), dextrose, flavor and aroma enhancer (E 621), antioxidant (E 301), thickener (E 415), extracts spices.

Stabilizers are phosphates that stabilize the pH (acidity level). For meat, this parameter varies greatly from batch to batch, since it greatly depends on what the cows and pigs ate in the last weeks of their lives. If the acidity is not stabilized, the meat will be extremely dry and will not retain moisture.

The gelling agent is the same carrageenan, an extract from seaweed. Everyone has probably encountered the fact that algae, which seem large and dense in water, dry out and become almost weightless when they land. This property is used here - one part of carrageenan powder can take 25-40 parts of water, forming a gel. This additive is added to the brine to ensure that the product has an elastic, “rubber” consistency.

Dextrose is the same as glucose, sugar. Added in small quantities for taste.
Flavor and aroma enhancer – monosodium glutamate. Well, why it is needed is quite clear.
Antioxidant - is introduced to ensure that the meat does not lose color and is stored longer.
The thickener - usually guar gum (powder from the fruit of the guar tree growing in India) - has similar properties to carrageenans and is used in diapers and pads. It is added to improve consistency and additional moisture binding.

Spice extracts are natural concentrated extracts that are added to add flavor notes. Regular ascorbic acid or its derivatives, sodium ascorbate, are used as an antioxidant.

This is what concerns the technological side of the issue. I repeat: with the help of these additives we create the consistency of the meat product, juiciness, color and taste.

Well, the economic side is that some of these additives allow you to retain the water pumped into the meat. The cost and, as a consequence, the price of the product naturally depends on the amount of this water. Technologists at enterprises inject products not out of natural malice, but for one simple reason - if this is not done, then firstly, the meat will be a little dry and bland and in a couple of days it will acquire a characteristic weathered color. Well, and secondly, because it will be very expensive and not every consumer will be able to call it. So this is a forced measure, for which we ourselves vote with our wallets.

- And how much water is added to the meat?

If we take it by the amount of moisture added, we can make the following gradation (not by meat, but by the finished product - a delicacy such as ham or carbonated meat):
Expensive “delicacy” (beef, pork) – moisture is injected up to 30% of the mass of the meat.
Middle segment – ​​35-50% by weight of meat
Budget segment - 60-80% moisture is introduced.
Due to the structural features of poultry meat, it is impossible to inject more than 25-30% moisture into chicken delicacies.
Chopped ham in a polyamide casing can be filled with more than 80% water.
This is what the economy is like.

That is, when buying products from the budget segment, as you called it, people get more water and less nutrients, less amino acids, vitamins, the things for which a person actually eats meat?

I want to tell you, as a marketer with many years of experience, this is this: only bodybuilders and other extreme radicals eat amino acids and vitamins in meat. A normal person eats meat in order to taste the meat, get the sensation of chewing the meat, feel a feeling of satiety and be aware of the fact that he has eaten meat. And how much of something there is – water or proteins – doesn’t really matter to him. If you calculate it in grams of protein per ruble, then it turns out that what you eat is approximately the same - better and more expensive, or cheaper but with water. People are fully aware of this, but they themselves play this game, precisely because they expect from food what I said, and not amino acids and proteins.



We don’t always know what kind of meat we eat and whether there are foreign substances there. The newspaper "Evening Grodno" found out whether there are additives, in particular water, in pork tenderloin.

On price tags in branded stores, customers are openly informed that it is injected with saline solution. This means that he was “pumped” with the additive using special equipment. In the meat aisles at the bazaar, sellers claim that they did not give any injections. But buyers had doubts.

The newspaper "Evening Grodno" conducted an experiment that proved that 40 grams of water can be injected into a piece of raw pork weighing 400 grams with a simple disposable syringe. This increases the weight and, accordingly, the price. The reason for the “research” was an appeal from reader Pavel Gennadievich from Ozyory. He and his relatives went to the market to buy some shish kebab.

“It looks like the meat is being squirted with water,- he says. - I was alarmed by the wet counters; liquid was dripping directly onto the floor. From the three-kilogram piece I bought, 160 grams of water gradually leaked out. I myself saw punctures on a cut of meat: there are 2-3 punctures in a piece. The guests refused to eat such kebab. What happens, we are being deceived?

It turned out that meat is not checked for moisture content at the market. The laboratory of the Grodno Center for Standardization, Metrology and Certification reported that the moisture indicator in raw meat is not standardized - there are no such standards.

Svetlana Savko, veterinarian at the veterinary and sanitary examination laboratory at the Central Market (Grodno), says: “Customers did not contact us with complaints that the meat was allegedly injected with water. The liquid you see on the shelves is natural juice. Our laboratory tests each batch for trichinosis, for established indicators, but we do not determine the mass fraction of moisture.”

Result: it is difficult to prove that water is added to meat to increase its weight. It turned out that laboratories and the sanitation station do not control whether there is excess liquid in the product. But in a frying pan, the extruded product behaves like this: it splashes, and when frying, it decreases in volume more than fresh meat from the village. A pale pink moisture constantly oozes from a raw piece, while a high-quality product initially releases residual blood and then dries out.

In many factories and even small factories, meat is extruded - the injection of water or other substances using special equipment. This is done to kill bacteria and other harmful microorganisms, as well as to give the product a richer taste thanks to spices and brine. However, when injecting, the mass increases. Often they syringe water with a weak saline solution, this allows you to increase the weight of the product by up to 20%, but water tends to spread out after a while, so solutions are used based on substances that create a structure close to natural.

As it turned out, syringe meat is supplied to city stores, for example, by the Volkovysk meat processing plant. The information on the price tags informs the buyer about this. A salesperson in one of the company stores reported that the meat contains a saline solution. The chief technologist of the enterprise, Ivan Lupish, did not reveal the secrets of injecting in a telephone conversation. He only said that the liquid additive was approved by the Ministry of Health and does not harm the health of the consumer.

The chef of the cafe-restaurant, Roman Melnikov, tells how you can recognize such meat: “In my practice, I have encountered meat injected with both water and saline solution. You can recognize it visually: the meat is more watery, the color is too pale, unappetizing. When defrosting, a large percentage of “defrost” - little liquid or product remains. I found the saline solution not only in pork, but also in chicken breasts.”

This week, experts from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, reported that eating 50 grams of processed meat daily increases the risk of bowel cancer by 18%. According to the results of scientific work, the development of cancer is influenced not by the meat itself, but by the substances used in its processing into sausage or bacon. Carcinogens can also be released when meat is cooked over an open fire at high temperatures. Without denying that red meat is rich in beneficial elements (iron, zinc and vitamin B12), IARC experts say that the risk of cancer increases with the amount of processed meat eaten.

And it’s not just about the risk of getting cancer, in the modern world it’s no longer a secret that animals are bred for meat on a shocking scale, and in order for them to grow faster and produce more meat or lard or the so popular bacon, livestock breeders go to very harmful lengths our health measures.

Instead of a kilogram of pork, for example, we buy half a kilogram of meat and half a liter of chemicals.

Almost half of the meat sold in markets and stores comes from animals of average

kind. The fact is that the greatest weight gain is given not by females, not by males, but by something in between. This

the creature can be raised if the piglet is given a little bit of female sex hormones with the food, and

on the contrary, male pigs. Animals grow faster and actively increase muscle mass. TO

For example, an ordinary piglet grows into an adult pig in a year.

And if you feed him hormones, he will mature in seven months. And time is money. Therefore, hormones are used in many

modern farms. True, farmers themselves do not eat such meat. They know that hormones

enter the body and begin to affect us. Scientists say the cause of obesity in

children and teenagers – modern meat, pumped with hormones. Experts told the authors how

distinguish hormonal meat when purchasing.

Fresh meat. Many people think that it is the most delicious and tender. In fact, immediately after slaughter

You can't cook meat. It's tough. The meat should sit for at least two days to allow the blood to drain and

muscles relaxed. But time is money. At some meat processing plants the process is accelerated -

"ripeners" are injected into the meat. Plus, after the injections, a piece of meat almost doubles in size

heavier. Which means it’s more expensive. According to the law, spritzed beef and pork are no longer meat, but

semifinished. But no one hides this. In the meat departments they sell escalope, entrecote, pork or

roast beef. There is no word meat on the price tags. It is profitable to produce such semi-finished products. Because

that you can pump as much brine and ripening agents into the meat as you like.

Farm meat. Many people think that it is always fresh and without chemicals. That is why pork and

beef is often purchased from illegal markets. This meat is really fresh. No animals

they are injected with hormones, pieces of meat are not pumped with polyphosphates. The problem is different. This pork and

no one checks the beef. It is unknown what the meat is contaminated with.

We are all different people, some are kind and compassionate, some are indifferent and selfish, but all these people want to live long and maintain their health. In this case, at least for the sake of your health and that of your loved ones, you should give up sausages, frankfurters, and other derived meat products and, of course, significantly reduce your meat consumption in your diet.

And it is important to remember: “I heard the cry of my dying father - his body was damaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realized that I had heard this cry before ... In the slaughterhouse, where they gouge out eyes and cut tendons, on ships for transporting livestock to the Near East, and the cry of a mother whale calling for her calf, who at the same time dies due to a Japanese harpoon exploding in her brain. Their cry was the cry of my father. I discovered that when we suffer, we suffer equally. And in ability animals suffer, the suffering of a dog is equal to the suffering of a pig, the suffering of a bear... and the suffering of a boy. Meat is the new asbestos - deadlier than tobacco. "Philip Wallen.