Meat + Poultry - September 2006 - 114

The Insider
Making a case for sausage

Feather fashion

If diet is the key to long life, then chalk one up for the protein industry. According to an Associated Press report earlier
this month, George Johnson, thought to be California's oldest living person died recently at the ripe age of 112. That's
the bad news. The good news is that despite a meat-rich diet,
Johnson was found to be unusually healthy.
"He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at
the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, said in the story. The
5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia this past
month, and Coles participated in an autopsy of his body to
study the supercentenarian's health.
"All of his organs were extremely youthful," said Coles
afterward. "He had no heart disease; he had no cancer, no
diabetes and no Alzheimer's." This affirms M&P's motto:
"Meat is life."

While poultry processors have proven their proficiency in using everything but the cluck when it comes to leaving little
or no waste from chicken carcasses, scientists say chicken
feathers and rice straw could be the fabric of our lives in the
future. Researchers say combining the feathers with fiber
can produce fabric similar to wool, linen or cotton and could
also one day be used instead of petroleum-based synthetics
like polyester.
"All those wastes don't have to be wasted anymore," Yiqi
Yang, a researcher textile scientist from the Univ. of Nebraska
at Lincoln said in a story posted on LiveScience.com.
Feathers are an appealing option because they are abundant, biodegradable and require no petroleum to manufacture. Researchers say chicken feathers are composed of the
same type of protein found in wool and that the network of
fibers have the same texture as wool.
"More than 4 billion pounds of chicken feathers are produced worldwide per year, about 50 percent of the weight of
which is made of the barbs," Yang said.

Designing beef cattle
Chicago-based David Burke's Primehouse has taken consistency to a culinary high point. This past year, Burke dropped
$250,000 for a prize black Angus bull to produce offspring
raised exclusively for his restaurant. Sperm from the bull,
known as "Prime," is used to inseminate heifers, which then
yield cattle with consistent, and delicious, attributes.
The investment affords the restaurant the luxury of guaranteeing their steaks are the highest quality for years to come. A
photograph of Prime hangs in the eatery's kitchen as a tribute
to the behind-the-scenes stud of the operation.

Prime Ribbing

Brought to you by
MEAT&POULTRY Magazine
Cartoon by Bob Bliss

Over herd
What was so impressive
to me was the fact that not all
fat people eat too much.
- Richard Atkinson, a Virginia Commonwealth Univ.
professor, on research supporting his theory that obesity
is based on factors other than just caloric intake.

Aging gracefully
During a recent visit to our favorite gourmet meat retailer
in the Kansas City area, we asked the smocked man behind
the counter about limits for aging briskets in vacuum-sealed
bags. Having never pushed the aging envelope for more than
30 days, we were shocked to hear the butcher, who formerly
worked as a chef, say he recommended 47 days for aging Certified Angus Beef briskets and 53 days for Wagyu variety. "If
you know how to slow-cook a brisket, this will melt in your
mouth," he said. We took his word for it and started the aging process in mid-August, with $60 at stake. With a cooking
date planned for late September, we look forward to seeing
how much this beef is like fine wine. Stay tuned.
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Meat + Poultry - September 2006

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