What is Glued Meat and Is It Dangerous?

Have you received the Glued Meat email? I did, and being one who never believes anything I get in a forwarded email, I decided to do a little digging. Here's what I found out: In March of 2011, an Australian television program called 'Today Tonight' did an investigative report on transglutanimase or TG and showed how it was used to glue together scraps of meat to make what looked like a filet. In the U.S., such products must be labeled as 'formed' or 'reformed.'

According to the website of a manufacturer of TG, it's used to "cold bond meat pieces, attach bacon to the surface of meat, improve the texture of cheese and reduce syneresis (water loss) in yogurt." According to greenprophet.com, it's a bad idea when it comes to meat, because "the bacterial count in patched-up meat is extremely high because scraps that were outside pieces but are now glued together inside are hard to cook thoroughly."

Instructions on how to use TG can be found on the French Cooking Institute's blog.

Coming from the part of the country where the turducken was invented, I'm not one to knock innovation in the kitchen, but do we really need things like like 'formed' meat, pasta made from shrimp and beet foam?