Afloat on my raft (bed), (thank you, Colette,) due to a recurrent back pain thing, ( grrr...), I have been laptopping this morning, and was just guided by the Internets to two stories with a perverse food linkage.
First, a car bomb exploded in an Iraq market among early morning shoppers, doing the usual horrendous damage. According to the WaPost, "Body parts mingled with vegetables lying in pools of blood. Fires burned afterward."
Tuesday an explosion at a ConAgra plant in North Carolina that turns out Slim Jims killed at least two people.
I have written more than once here about the obvious contrast between people out and about buying food in order to nourish their families and bombers out and about in order to maim and destroy their fellows. Alas, here we go again. My sect/tribe/family/political party/region/religious belief is superior, so therefore you, whoever you are there randomly fingering the cucumbers, must die!
Anyway--the thought of people dying in pursuit of the creation of Slim Jims revealed that
this ubiquitous American jerky product is made from, among other unknown ingredients, "mechanically separated meat ( MSM,)" in this case, surprise, chicken! According to Wiki, in MSM bones that might have a bit of meat still attached are forced through a sieve-like machine that separates the meat from the bone and extrudes a paste-like substance.
Mind you, when Mad Cow or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy started to
appear in humans, this MSM process involving beef was banned in both
the US and the UK. Apparently bits of bovine spinal cord were turning
up in hot dogs and such, so...
Sound yummy? Jerky is an ancient form of food preservation, traditionally involving strips of meat, often seasoned, dried using low heat, or sun, or air. Simple, basic.
BTW Eating chicken spinal cord bits is evidently ok. As far as we know. Have a Slim Jim.