Anyone who has cooked corned beef from a Cryovac package knows that it shrinks up to nothing after boiling. And ham often suffers the same fate. In prior stories we have explained that both corned beef and ham are often injected with up to a 35% water and salt solution. Nothing like paying meat prices for water.
Now we turn to turkeys. At least in Boston, turkeys were offered at a giveaway price this year — 39 cents a pound — at a number of major chains. And at least one store did not require a $25 minimum purchase to snare one at that crazy low price. To MrConsumer’s surprise, however, all the 39-cent turkeys had been bulked up with “solution,” like a body builder on steroids.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Various brands checked had all been injected with 9.5 percent water, salt, sugar, and flavoring. This is really nothing new, but it just wasn’t as obvious before (including to MrConsumer). Why? There was a change in USDA labeling rules as of 2018 that makes the presence of solution hard to miss. Now the added water weight must be disclosed in type at least 1/3 the size of the name of the product.
Why is solution even there to start with? Certainly there are sensory benefits to having turkeys pre-basted to make them more moist. And no doubt the companies make extra money by fattening up the birds with water.
Thank goodness it is only 9.5%, and not 35% as with other meats.
