What A Way. . .
. . .to end the day.
I had to stop by a jobsite on my way home this evening in Gallman. This particular project is nothing special, simply a parking addition to a food processing plant. A few years ago we did a retention pond addition for the facility and I don't remember anything particularly unusual about that plant.
But today, oh Lord help me!!! I pulled alongside the building and was confronted by an odor of indescribable density, strength and ripeness. I looked ahead of me and noticed an open top trailer parked under a canopy and beneath the canopy some strange ductwork with two vents.
A closer look at the trailer answers the question of the odor.
Yes, that says "debone."
And what do you put in an open top trailer that says "debone?"
Be glad that the evening lighting was poor because falling from the ductwork in the darkness were giant gooey gobs of chicken meat as I could hear some sort of grinding apparatus inside. And as each glob of meat was hurled from the ductwork into the trailer, a black cloud of flies would boil up from inside the meat box, scattered by the falling bujumbajub. Had to make up a whole new word to describe that nastiness.
I am pretty sure that this deboned chicken, which is also known by the even less desirable "mechanically-separated" chicken is not destined to land on your dinner table. But maybe in cat food or chicken feed. Boy aren't they a lucky lot.
I used to be proud of how long I could blow a note on the clarinet in junior high band, but today I broke all records of human endurance as I held my breath and sped away past the trailer named "debone."
And then "parts."
And then "feathers."
Ugh! I need a bath!
- Sent from my iPhone
Toast, I hate to tell you, but what you were hearing was indeed a mechanical separater. Long story short, they take whatever is left on a chicken carcass, grind it up, and get the leftover "meat" off of it. No worries though. Unless you eat vienna sausage, hot dogs, potted meat, etc.
Have a good BBQ.
I eat all of that. I think more disturbing than the actual separation that was taking place were the hordes of flies around that box. Of biblical proportions I'm telling you.
I wonder if there are any FDA standards of ppm fly carcasses to chicken meat ratios that must be followed?
Actually, when it comes to any meat product, the tolerance is zero. Vegetable products, however, is a different story. See ketchup, insect parts, tolerance.
In order to qualify as U.S. No. 1 Grade, the commodities listed below cannot exceed the following limits of contamination:
Ketchup -- 30 fruit fly eggs per 100 grams
Canned corn -- 2 insect larvae per 100 grams
Blueberries -- 2 maggots per 100 berries
Peanut butter -- 50 insect fragments per 100 grams
Curry powder -- 100 insect fragments per 100 grams
Wheat -- 1% of grains infested
Sesame seed -- 5% of seeds infested
Coffee -- 10% of beans infested