Reformed meat products should be clearly labeled, but the Food and Drug Administration has not made it mandatory for restaurants to comply
Recently, feed-grade powdered beef fat sold by Shusen Company was made into reconstituted beef, and more than 834,000 kg was sold, affecting a total of 573 yakiniku restaurants, steakhouses and others across Taiwan, China, leaving the public deeply anxious. As for the fact that beef sold on the market cannot be distinguished as reconstituted meat, Pan Chih-kuan, section chief of the Food Division of the Food and Drug Administration, said at a press conference today that fully packaged reconstituted meat products should all be labeled clearly with the various ingredients contained in the packaged food in accordance with Article 22 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, and that if reconstituted meat products use food additives such as sodium phosphate as binders, or use flavoring agents such as aminoacetic acid, the names of the individual food additives must be labeled in detail. If the labeling is false, a fine of 4 to 4 million yuan may be imposed; if there is no labeling, a fine of 30,000 to 3 million yuan may be imposed.
However, in the case of Shusen this time, Shusen had already labeled the food additives and the words reconstituted meat on the packaging, so it did not break the law. But the restaurant operators downstream would further process the reconstituted steaks into various meals for sale, and the general public may not be able to distinguish them. In response, the Food and Drug Administration issued an explanation that since the 93rd year of the Republic of China, it has guided food and beverage operators to clearly label the relevant wording of "reconstituted meat" on menus offering reconstituted meat products, and required that customers be served fully cooked meals. In addition, in the 101st year of the Republic of China, it also sent letters asking county and city health bureaus to strengthen inspections, checking whether restaurant menus truthfully labeled the wording "reconstituted meat"; if there was no labeling, on-the-spot improvement would be required. However, as to whether restaurants will be forced to label, Pan Chih-kuan said that it will gradually move in that direction.
In the absence of a mandatory government requirement, if ordinary consumers eat reconstituted meat and find that the restaurant menu does not label it clearly, they can file a consumer lawsuit with their local consumer protection officer to protect their rights. Hsu Hui-yu, director of the Food Division of the John Tung Foundation, explained that usually, reconstituted beef will have phosphate water-retention agents added as binders; however, once these additives are put in, the water content increases, the flavor of the meat is diluted, so seasonings are then added to increase the taste, and the texture when eaten is also watery and more juicy.
In addition, after ordinary beef is fully cooked, the texture of the meat becomes relatively astringent and also harder, and when eaten there are many tendons pulling against one another, but reconstituted meat, even after being fully cooked, will not become hard or astringent; when cut, there is only a single layer of film, it falls apart very easily, and the grain of the meat is also very irregular; after it cools, the difference in flavor becomes even more obvious.