Memorial Day is just a couple of weeks away and you know what that means…fire up those barbeques!

But before you throw in the charcoal and start grilling, you may want to take a second look at the meat you are about to eat.

A deceptive and questionable food technology approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration is making its way onto supermarket shelves. Carbon monoxide gas is being used in meat and fish packaging to create a red color typically associated with freshness.  CO treatment means that consumers are more likely to eat spoiled meat that looks fresh (ick!).

As all you cooks know, meat not treated with carbon monoxide will begin to turn brown (or naturally oxidize) after approximately 10 to 12 days. But meat treated with carbon monoxide will retain its color and mask spoilage even when improperly stored for weeks at a time. And, the presence of CO can cause fish to accumulate dangerous levels of scombrotoxin or histamine and can mask a wide variety of pathogens in meat including E. Coli and Salmonella.

Just in time for summer grilling, the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is going to sell CO-treated meat in its stores – and is even taking the technology one step further. Wal-mart is using an even more deceptive packaging system, called the “motherbag” system, whereby meat treated with carbon monoxide is packaged to look like it was prepared at an in-store deli. This means Wal-Mart can keep the meat on the shelves longer, while people may be buying meat that is more than a month old.

What exactly is a “motherbag”?

Usually, CO-treated meat is placed in “modified atmosphere packaging.” You’d probably call it shrink-wrapped.

In the motherbag system, the meat is placed on a tray and is wrapped with permeable cellophane before being treated with carbon monoxide. After the individual package has been wrapped (to look like it was prepared on-site), it is then placed in a tray on a cart with other packages of meat. The entire cart is then wrapped with a large plastic bag and infused with carbon monoxide. As the meat travels to the stores in the carts, CO will seep through the cellophane.

See for yourself what this looks like in the photo taken at a Wal-Mart store. This meat has been treated with carbon monoxide, although it looks like it has been packaged right at the store.

And the worst part about this technology? There is no labeling requirement for products treated with carbon monoxide. So the best thing to do is just be careful and make sure to read the expiration dates on packaging! And as always, make sure to cook meat properly.

You can learn more about CO in our new report Carbon Monoxide – Masking the Truth About Meat? 

Have a fun and SAFE holiday!

Sit-ups, crunches, weightlifting, interval training – sounds like a rigorous workout for anyone trying to get in shape. Could this be a fitness regimen for salmon too?

That’s what the scientists in Norway are trying to prove. 

Since training and exercise are essential in maintaining good health for humans, could the same be applied to fish?

In order to make farmed salmon stronger and more resistant to disease once they are transferred to ocean cages, a research group in Norway is trying to get farmed juvenile salmon in shape for ocean water using some techniques from the top football team of Spain (we here in the U.S. call it soccer). Scientists from the project discovered that the heart capacity in wild salmon is greater than in farmed salmon, so they put the farmed salmon on a strict training regime to make their hearts stronger.

The exercise? They say the equivalent of jogging - swimming faster with increased water velocity in their tanks. The fish in the trial were divided into three groups – one was a control group (normal fish tank conditions), one group was put in a tank with increased water velocity throughout the day, and one group was put in a tank for “jogging” or intervals of increased water velocity (what the scientists call “high intensity training”). And how do they measure their heart rates? With tiny heart monitors, of course.

Although the experiment is still ongoing, the scientists are optimistic that their training program will help farmed fish handle the stresses of the ocean:

"Less stress means the fish have greater energy reserves to tackle the challenges of everyday life…In the long-term, we believe that this can make the fish even more robust. It's just like with us humans, healthier fish thrive better, and this will in turn increase profitability for the salmon farmers,” stated senior scientist, Harald Takle.

While the researchers claim that less stress could reduce the chance of disease in farmed salmon, the experiment is not getting to the root of the problem. Cramming thousands of genetically identical fish in ocean cages will inevitably lead to the spreading of disease. Once one gets sick, they often all get sick and can even spread diseases to wild salmon populations.

Instead of spending millions of dollars on a short-sighted experiments, these groups should be investing in research on promoting sustainable wild fisheries. Scientists need to be looking at the bigger picture to protect marine resources rather than trying to solve the numerous problems created by fish farms.

- Erin Greenfield
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Corporate attempts to label their products as “green” for the sake of turning a fast buck are nothing new. Corporations exist, after all, in order to make money, and capitalizing on whatever is capturing the public’s collective imagination is often the best way of doing so. But Fiji Artisanal Water’s entree into the green movement strikes us as particularly suspect.

The company has recently launched fijigreen.com, a website outlining the ways in which their water is “good for the environment.”

If you’re anything like us, you are probably wondering how this claim could be true.

It can’t. 

While Fiji’s Artisanal Water’s commitment to reducing their packaging, investing in rainforest renewal and reducing their carbon emissions may be applauded by some, these measures are not enough to make them a green company. By definition, bottled water is simply not an environmentally friendly product.

When companies package and sell water, they take a natural resource that falls freely from the sky from communities that need it, stick it in plastic bottles (made from oil, of course), and ship it across the globe to sell it for hundreds, sometimes thousands of times its actual value.  And while Fiji and its cohorts can encourage consumers to recycle, the fact of the matter is that 86% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the trash, instead of being recycled.

With citizens and governments around the world abuzz with worries of oil shortages, how can companies continue to manufacture a needless product that directly contributes to this impending crisis, let alone have the audacity to proclaim it “green?”

The most sustainable water option isn’t actually green at all (if it were, that would be a bit scary). It’s actually quite clear: tap water.  It’s convenient, delivered through energy-efficient means, and in most cases, is just as healthy and pure as its froufy bottled counterparts--sometimes cleaner.  Even better, it requires spending very little green in order to do something green.

For more on why tap water is a better alternative to bottled, check out our resources at www.takebackthetap.org. Then tell us how you feel about Fiji Artisanal Water’s not-so-green marketing machine.