As expected, food producers defend use of carbon monoxide in meat products

The two largest meat producers in the U.S. went on the defensive yesterday after lawmakers chastised the industry for using the poisonous chemical carbon monoxide to make all those supermarket meat products look fresh and red. target even wants to put new labels on its meat products warning consumers of the presence of this nasty chemical.

Are these meat producers kidding us? How they can say that the "Use By" date on meat products is more important than telling the consumer of all the chemicals used in many meat products is beyond me.

When spinmeister CEOs like Hormel chief Jeffrey Ettinger have the gall to state nonsense like "Consumers are not eating bad product and are not being deceived by this technology," we all have reason to not trust a thing from any large food processing company. Although the amount of carbon monoxide is low in most packaged meat, the much larger bug-a-boo not being brought up here is the use of sodium nitrite to keep dead meat looking red. Why, I ask?