The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Putting Ground Bone as Ingredient in Processed Meat

(Film clip showing different people eating hot dogs.)

ROBERT MacNEIL: Each year Americans consume more than seven pounds of hot dogs per person. Will they like them as well if the makers start putting in ground bone as one of the ingredients?

Good evening. No doubt millions of Americans have been laying in a supply of hot dogs for the holiday weekend. Well, in a few weeks you may find a new kind of hot dog and other processed meat in the supermarket. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just approved the use of ground bone as an ingredient in such meats. The amount is very small -- six tenths of one percent by weight. This would be the actual amount of bone permitted in a whole pound of frankfurters. In one hot dog the bone content would be about this much. But the controversy it`s caused is not so small. Consumer groups who fought the idea through the courts and got it stopped for two years are still worried about what eating even small quantities of bone may do to us. Other nutrition experts say it will do us a lot of good. Tonight, what`s good and what`s bad about ground bone in meat? Jim Lehrer is off tonight. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington.

Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the problem started about two years ago with the Department of Agriculture proposal to redefine meat to include a mixture of fat, crushed bone and bits of flesh. Industry called it MDM, or mechanically deboned meat, and it was produced from the meat left on bones after the butcher gets through with it. That amounts to about a billion pounds of beef, pork and lamb that would ordinarily go to waste every year. The meat product is made by a machine that looks like a gigantic juicer. The bones go into a hopper, are ground up, and the unusable parts -- bone and tissue -- are discarded on one side. The good stuff comes out on the other side, only it too contains a small amount of the ground bone. And that is what the fuss is all about.

It took a couple of years to get regulations governing mechanically deboned meat, but now that the Department of Agriculture has them the man in charge of enforcing them is Dr. Donald Houston, Deputy Administrator of the Poultry Inspection Department. Dr. Houston, why did you pass these regulations?

Dr. DONALD HOUSTON: Well, there was of course a great deal of controversy surrounding the use of this product, and with the increasing or expanding technology we found it necessary to put it out for public comment to see what the public thought about it and to of course come up with what we finally did, a regulation that permitted its use with appropriate labeling declaration. It`s a matter of what we`re facing nowadays, and with expanding technology giving us new ways of producing food, making more food available to the public; but at the same time there are more and more questions arising about the way this food is produced, and this is a very good example of what we`re facing in the production of food today.

HUNTER-GAULT: Are you yourself convinced that this product is safe?

HOUSTON: Yes, I am. We had a panel of very eminent government scientists, we had scientists outside the government look at this product; we`re convinced after looking at it very closely for over a year that what we`ve done is a very reasonable approach to permitting this product to get into the food supply that`s safe and wholesome but at the same time consumers do have labeling so that they can make that choice if they wish to do so, to either consume the product or to avoid it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Why is it used in some products, like hot dogs, and not in others, like hamburgers?

HOUSTON: I think, as you showed the viewers here earlier in that film, the product has a consistency; it has a paste like consistency and so therefore it can only be used in certain products where it will not alter the textural consistency of the product as it`s come to be known by consumers. For example, frankfurters; it can be used without a problem.

HUNTER-GAULT: Sausages...

HOUSTON: Yes. You couldn`t use it in corned beef or other whole chunks of meat or things like this, because it`s simply not compatible with the textural characteristics that consumers have come to associate with those products.

HUNTER-GAULT: I understand that there are two main areas where this product is going to be used immediately, that is, in exports and in institutions. Why are those the only two places it`s going to be used?

HOUSTON: Well, those aren`t the only two places it can be used; it can be used in any product in which the regulation provides for its use.

HUNTER-GAULT: But I understand that...

HOUSTON: Right. There`s been some concern by the meat industry that this label is not conducive to good marketing; they can`t market the product with the label on it, as we`ll get into later. "Mechanically processed meat product; contains up to x percent powdered bone"; they feel that`s a pejorative label.

HUNTER-GAULT: You mean you can do this better abroad than...?

HOUSTON: Well, you know the export -- products get to another country, the labeling doesn`t follow through there. It`s up to that country as to how they`re going to label the product. And obviously, when we get into institutional products -- products that are in the ball park, products that are in restaurants and so forth -- that labeling doesn`t carry through to the consumer, so...

HUNTER-GAULT: Oh, the institutions you`re talking about are stores and restaurants, and so on, not schools or penal institutions.

HOUSTON: Restaurants, boarding houses, these kinds of things where the consumer is eating the prepared product as opposed to the consumer who picks it up at the retail market and has a chance to look at the label; that`s the difference.

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. And the label that you would use in this country would not be used in another country. I mean, there would be no transfer of ...

HOUSTON: And of course our laws don`t apply in other countries, and so it`s up to them to do what they want to do.

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. Some of the consumer advocates have said that the Department of Agriculture has acknowledged that the product has problems because of the two labels that it has pit on it, that there are a lot of unanswered questions. Are there any as far as you`re concerned?

HOUSTON: No. First of all, we got over 4,500 comments on this proposal, which is the most we`ve ever gotten on any regulatory proposal that we`ve published in the Department of Agriculture under the Meat and Poultry Inspection Program. That indicates the keen public interest in this issue. Many of those comments from consumers -- over 3,500 of them -were negative in one form or another; they didn`t want the product, or they were concerned about it, they wanted it labeled. The fact remains that after you look at the scientific evidence there`s nothing wrong with the product.

HUNTER-GAULT: Okay. Let me just ask you quickly, because we have to move on: your requirements limit the ingredients to fourteen percent fat, a certain amount of protein and a certain amount of calcium. How do you plan to enforce that?

HOUSTON: That`s fourteen percent protein and thirty percent fat.

HUNTER-GAULT: Protein, I`m sorry.

HOUSTON: Two ways, principally. We`ll require producers of the product to have quality control programs to meet those parameters and we`ll approve those; and secondly, every meat and poultry plant that operates in the United States has a USDA inspector in it. So with the combination of those two we`ll be able to control it. That won`t be a problem.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you; we`ll come back. Robin?

MacNEIL: The loudest protest against permitting some ground bone in processed meats has come from consumer groups. It was the Consumer Nutrition Institute which led the court fight two years ago that kept such products off the market until now. Ellen Haas is the director of that organization`s consumer division. Ms. Haas, what dangers could there be in allowing these particles of bone to be sold in meat products?

ELLEN HAAS: The point is that this time we`re not quite sure what the long- term consequences are of consuming this technologically created foodstuff. We need to determine what those parameters are and what the safety questions are. And when it happens years hence it`s very hard to reimburse consumers for any health care loss. The other concern is really the lack of microbiological standards and the concern about bacterial hazards which could occur without any close monitoring of these bacterial standards.

MacNEIL: Why are they more likely putting bone in meat than just with meat?

HAAS: Well, the processing technique requires a lower temperature for the rendering, and this produces more inclination for bacterial growth. Another concern is that there`s further exposure of surface area, which is also a prime medium for bacterial growth. All of these increase the risk to consumers, if these regulations stand, without adequate protection.

MacNEIL: Are you still worried--I mean, consumer groups in the past have raised questions about things that may actually be in the bone material itself being ingested-- are you still worried about that, or have you been reassured on that?

HAAS: We`re not quite reassured. There are some lingering concerns, particularly in the question of fluoride, the residues of fluoride which remain in the bone. The expert panel of government scientists, with very little outside input -- objective input, I might add -- did find that fluoride dietary intake wasn`t a problem. However, that study did not have the variables of water content, and the animals that do graze and drink water do so at different fluoride levels. And this measurement was not in the evaluation; and so there is still a lingering concern about the fluoride intake, and I think the department recognizes that when it does keep this product, this mechanically processed product, out of baby food and toddler food, and the regulation does specifically say that it should not be in these food products, and the reason is because of the possibility of mottling of teeth of children.

MacNEIL: The concern has also been raised -- I wonder whether you still share it -- that there might be some strontium 90, the sort of fallout from nuclear explosions or radioactivity, in the bone. Is that an active concern, or is that not?

HAAS: I feel that this is a prime example of the long-term consequences that we don`t know what the health ramifications for the future and future generations are. I think it illustrates the problem so well that before we jump into these new proposals that we`ve got to take a very hard look into making those long-term evaluations. And so I have a lingering concern that all the facts are not in; and I`m not satisfied with what I see, that there has been a consideration of those long-term consequences.

MacNEIL: So what do you want done? Do you want it taken off the market while more studies are done, or stricter regulations, or what?

HAAS: Well, let`s begin by saying that we would greatly have preferred that this would have not been done at this point in time, that we would have preferred and the court would have preferred, if we go back to the court order of two years ago, that all of the safety and health questions be completely resolved in the minds of those consumers, industry and the government. However, if these products are going to be allowed into the marketplace then the absolute barest minimum of protection for consumers is that there be full disclosure of actually what is the product and what does it contain. And we feel that the labeling regulations that do exist now, which prominently disclose to consumers that there is a percentage of powdered bone in this product, is the barest amount of protection.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: The American Meat Institute, the largest organization of meat packers, lobbied to get new regulations passed. The president of that group is Richard Lyng. Mr. Lyng, let me just clarify something before we go on. The carcasses that go into the machine -- the good product comes out on one side, and that contains about three percent ground bone. Now, that ground bone: do you deliberately include that, or does that just get in there accidentally?

RICHARD LYNG: Well, it`s a bone powder, a very fine bone powder that is part of the product, and it`s really a healthful thing. We think there is so little of it that we make no claims; but there is a calcium deficiency in the United States, and this is calcium.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you don`t put that in there because of the calcium deficiency; it gets there accidentally, in other words.

LYNG: Oh, no. We don`t quarrel with the limitations on that, because that`s a practical thing. You get some bones, you know, when you saw a steak; perhaps you`ve seen in the butcher shop, there`ll be some bone on the steak. And then when people pick up a steak and chew on it, or a lamb chop, they get a little bone, too; so this is a natural thing.

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. This is not a part of the formula.

LYNG: It isn`t the addition of bone to meat.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel this product is safe?

LYNG: Oh, I know it is. Positively.

HUNTER-GAULT: Some consumers have charged that this is an attempt to lower the standards of meat at the expense of the consumer.

LYNG: Well, actually it`s quite the opposite. It`s getting more out of each animal. As we moved along -- you know, we eat more and more meals away from home, more and more hamburgers, we`re in a hamburger society; and so that meat is taken off of the bones in a commercial establishment. The meat that is left on them is good meat, and this is a technological way of salvaging that.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you feel about the regulations?

LYNG: I think that they in effect are banning the product.

HUNTER-GAULT: In what way?

LYNG: Because of the requirement for labeling. I have a small sample of that here which shows you what will be required on a package. This would be the current package, beef franks; under the labeling that`s required we must put "with mechanically processed beef product" in that size. Now, of course we don`t think it`ll sell. And that`s the reason we don`t believe that there will be very much business in a retail package. It hardly fits on the package.

HUNTER-GAULT: What would you rather see?

LYNG: We`d like to see it listed in the ingredients, typically. Even a cigarette package, which has the warning statement, doesn`t have anything remotely -- and everyone, virtually, agrees that that`s` harmful; there`s nothing harmful in this, and we think it`s an unreasonable labeling requirement. And we think it`s been done to make it virtually impossible to sell the product.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Some nutritionists feel that meat bone may be good for us. Dr. Ray Field is a professor of animal science at the University of Wyoming and has spent seven years studying the effects of ground bone meat mixture on the human body. Dr. Field, is mechanically deboned meat as nutritious as plain meat?

RAY FIELD: It`s been my stand, Robin, and many others`, that it`s more nutritious. And it`s more nutritious basically because of three nutrients that are lacking in many Americans diets, that are present because of the small bone particles that are just part of this product. The three nutrients are calcium, fluoride and iron. All three of those are deficient in many American diets. And recognizing this, we do such things as fluoridate our water, we buy bone meal out of the store as a supplement, and iron supplements are very common and well-known to everyone. And these three supplements are found naturally in this product.

MacNEIL: Is there a danger of any individual getting too much of any one of those things, more than he needs?

FIELD: Well, most nutrients that are good for us can be consumed in excess. Fortunately, the one of these that is found most in the powdered bone that`s in the mechanically deboned meat is not one of them. Calcium has not been shown to have any detrimental effects if consumed in excess.

MacNEIL: We consume a lot of calcium every time we drink a glass of milk.

FIELD: Yes, we do. But we don`t consume enough of it.

MacNEIL: Do we know enough yet about the body`s ability to digest these tiny particles of bone, which I`m told are around the size of a flake of ground pepper? Can the stomach and digestive system actually digest these easily?

FIELD: Well, this has been exhaustively studied in the last few years when this has been discussed; and the very simple answer is yes, the gastric juices dissolve the bone particles within just a few seconds after they hit the stomach. And it takes an hour or two hours or longer for food to pass through the stomach. These have been studied in many different studies where they`ve been fed to rats and looked at the stomach to see if there were any ulcers or lesions, and...

MacNEIL: And there were not.

FIELD: And there were not.

MacNEIL: What about the dangers that Ms. Haas referred to, particularly the fluoride danger on the teeth of certain children and the danger of strontium 90 being present in trace amounts in the bone, it being known that bones are where such radioactivity resides if it does enter the animal`s body?

FIELD: Well, let`s take the strontium 90 first, because that`s very simple. The many studies that have been done have not been able to detect any strontium 90 in this product. And so I think that`s a very simple answer, there is none; certainly not any more than there would be in any other food that we would eat. And as I say, the levels are so low that they have not been detected. Now, with regard to the question of fluoride, the expert panel said that it should not be used in baby food at this time because there was a possibility of mottling of teeth. But they made it very clear that they restricted it at this time not because of any health hazard but because they simply did not have enough information. And actually, we have about as much fluoride in a pound of mechanically deboned meat hot dogs as we would get in drinking a quart of water.

MacNEIL: Okay. Let`s take this back to the Department of Agriculture and Dr. Houston. Dr. Houston, why -- to pick up the point that Ms. Haas raised -- why, if this is so good for us, do you not permit it to be sold in baby foods or toddler foods?

HOUSTON: Well, because the panel of scientists that looked at it, as Dr. Field pointed out, didn`t have enough information on the effects of fluorides in that age group to move ahead with confidence and approve it. And rather than make anything other than a negative suggestion they felt that at this point they didn`t have enough information, so they would recommend that it not be used for that age group of people. It`s just, as Dr. Field pointed out, a lack of information.

MacNEIL: I see. Ms. Haas, do you feel that that underlines the point you were making?

HAAS: Yes. I think that it illustrates quite well that all the facts are not in; there still are concerns that abound, and until those are resolved, why go ahead with this? And also, if I can just pick up on one point that`s been raised and seems to be emphasized, I`m very concerned about the rights of consumers who eat in restaurants and institutions. The same right of full disclosure is deserving of those people who consume this product with powdered bone as is the consumer in the supermarket. The consumers who will be in restaurants and institutions will buy hot dogs, not knowing that there might be powdered bone in it, and perhaps they do have a calcium problem and a gall bladder problem that might be affected by this. They need to know.

MacNEIL: Is that a justifiable concern, Dr. Field, that some people with certain kinds of health problems should not eat this product inadvertently?

FIELD: There is of course a very small proportion of our population that are hypercalcium absorbers; they may have kidney stones or something else where it has been theorized, at least, that their diets should be low in calcium.

MacNEIL: But would the amount of calcium in this cause a problem if they ate in a restaurant which was serving mechanically deboned meat?

FIELD: Well, I think the point is that the amount there is extremely small, and being extremely small it`s not adding a lot of extra calcium to the diet. And many of these people are under a doctor`s care and certainly if they were aware of it they would probably avoid those products.

MacNEIL: What do you say, Mr. Lyng, when the industry hears these problems raised? Do you just say that you have evidence to the contrary, or you`re just not worried about it?

LYNG: Well, we defer to what we consider to be recognized scientific expertise. And this government panel, as Dr. Houston has. mentioned, of competent people, as well as private scientists, university scientists like Dr. Field, all have agreed -- virtually a hundred percent of them have agreed. So that we feel that people just simply don`t have to worry about the product. We also know that it has been used for many, many years throughout the world; the United States is, I guess, the only developed nation that doesn`t permit the use of this. We do permit it in such products as chicken franks. The chicken frank and many mechanically deboned fish products are on the market with no particular labeling. I understand that the department is considering labeling there. Anyone who has any doubt about the value of the product, try a chicken frank; you`ll find they`re quite good.

MacNEIL: Let`s ask Miss Haas about that. Miss Haas, why should we be concerned about allowing a little bit of bone in red meat products when we`ve been eating it for twelve years in chicken products where it`s been permitted?

HAAS: I think that`s a good point. Twelve years ago I don`t think that consumers were questioning technological creations. We didn`t have the ability as consumer organizations to really monitor federal regulatory process. And the thing came along, and it got eased into the department`s regulations, and there was little concern. However, in the last ten years concern has been growing on the changing nature of the American diet and on the growth of technology and the long -term consequences. And we feel very strongly that the same that should hold f .or red meat products should hold for poultry, and we`re very pleased that the department is looking into having a consistent labeling policy. It should have been done twelve years ago; hopefully we can correct that now.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just pursue this question of the information for consumers. Ms. Haas, do you feel that the regulations provide consumers with enough information to make an informed choice?

HAAS: I think it does provide them with the minimum amount of information. Two important changes have come about over the last two years. When the first proposal was made, this was classified as a meat product.

Now very much in front is that it is a meat food product, which is very different; it`s not traditionally as we know meat. Furthermore, on front, on the product label, as Mr. Lyng has showed you, is the disclosure of the powdered bone. And yes, that does afford consumers with an opportunity to spend their money wisely. And furthermore, we`d like to see further nutrition labeling, which these regulations do not have.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you feel about that, Mr. Lyng?

LYNG: The size of that label is going to bury the nutrition labeling. This has a nutritional label on it over here, but we`re simply going to run out of room on the label, or else we`re going to have to have -- now, don`t you think, Ellen, that that`s a ridiculous size requirement? That`s in strict accordance with this regulation.

HAAS: Well, according to the regulation, it is that it should be half the size of the product name, and the other part about powdered bone is only one quarter, which is again a reducing in consumer information.

LYNG: And that`s what this is.

HAAS:I think we have talent and creative talent in industry to develop a label that can be easy to use and clear and still you`ll get your information about your product name.

LYNG: We`ll have to reduce the size of "beef franks" so small that it will be...

HAAS: Maybe that`s not such a bad idea.

HOUSTON: Squeeze the letters closer together.

(Laughter.)

HAAS: That may not be such a bad idea, Dick.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, let me just ask you in the minute or so that we have left -- Ms. Haas, you seem to-be the most adamant about it; would you allow your family to eat one of these hot dogs?

HAAS: Absolutely not.

HUNTER-GAULT: Doctor?

HOUSTON: Yes, I would.

HUNTER-GAULT: You would.

LYNG: Sure, I`ll eat it right here.

(Laughter.)

HAAS: It doesn`t have MDM.

HUNTER-GAULT: How about you in New York? Dr. Field, are you there?

FIELD: Yes, I am. I think it would be a very good addition to my family`s diet. I`d be very pleased to have them eat the product.

HUNTER-GAULT: Very good. Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thanks very much, Charlayne. Thank you all in Washington. That`s all for tonight. Thank you, Dr. Field. We`ll be back on Monday night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.