Ground beef - added natural flavors

[jayjordan]

Was looking through meat section at WM Market yesterday, saw some brisket burgers. Picked up the package to look at ingredients to see if it was 100% brisket or combined with other cuts. Well, that wasn’t on the label but what caught my attention was the second listed ingredient “natural flavoring.” Guess in my decades of buying ground beef I have never looked at the label ingredients before, so was a bit disturbed that there were additives to the packaged meat. Looked at every different cut/lean/fat mix package and found every one has added natural flavoring. After a bit of reading this morning I found there’s no telling what that “natural flavoring “ contains….we just have to trust that all components are considered generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
This has probably been discussed before, but searches here and the free side didn’t yield any results.

Another reason to have a trusted local butcher or grind your own.

[Michael_in_TX]

Out of curiosity, I went and looked at HEB's offerings. Every single ground fresh beef product had only one listed ingredient: "beef." I even checked all of the ones in the "tubes" and they were all the same, just beef. Even the artisanal ground beef vacuum packs were just beef. (Obviously, the seasoned beef patties were more than just beef.)

When I was quickly going through them, I accidentally clicked on an "impossible" beef (i.e. plant based) patty and wow, that list of ingredients is longer than a CVS receipt.

I wonder if that added "natural flavoring" is just a legal catch all.

[jayjordan]

Yeah, I based my post on the worst example of grocery store. I was going to check HEB’s ground offerings next time in the store. Not surprised there’s no added flavoring.
One other thing I noted on the Walmart ground beef- all packaged by Tyson.

[SheilaAnn]

Yeah…. I know I’ve screeched about this before… consumers (I’m not going to call specifics) going on and on how healthy and clean they eat, etc. And yet, products like mentioned above in on their table. What will last longer in an apocalypse? Twinkies, cockroaches or impossible burger?

[texastweeter]

SheilaAnn if the apocalypse comes bullets and bananas will be more important than all of the above. I will have plenty of protein aged on hoof.

[Purc]

"Natural flavorings" are in a huge number of things we consume and outside of industry lawyers, who know what that really means. They can be made of hundreds of ingredients per Bobby Parrish of FlavCity, a lifestyle influencer.

[Uncle Bob]

Walmart owns a couple beef processing plants for their own supply chain, as well as buying from other commercial packers. Their owned plants are roughly due North of Texas, so would likely be plants distributing to your area assuming they are taking advantage of shortest supply route economics. It could be that they treat every carcass they process with whatever chemical "enhancements" they use as a matter of routine for whatever purposes it supposedly covers, thus the listing on every product packaged.

[Michael_in_TX]

I was kinda thinking that too....there's some preservative added. And it could be called 'natural' in the same way celery juice is called on hot dogs.

[Uncle Bob]

Yeah, celery is a particularly fun additive. It's typically used for preservation purposes as it has "natural" nitrates, but is often in produces claiming "no nitrates"...................up to you whether that's deceptive or not.

[texastweeter]

Probably a little liquid moly mixed in to help with lifter tick.

[realdocBBQ]

I guess my biggest question is why does WM even exist there anymore???? Like... you guys have H.E.B.!


And why were YOU there?? lol


j/k man... ok, no, not really. lol

[jayjordan]

I was there because it’s a couple of blocks from my house and I needed one item. Nearest HEB is 10 miles away.

[Panhead John]

The last couple of years I’ve avoided Walmart unless absolutely necessary. They’ve got 2 products I use that other stores don’t carry and that’s the only time I step foot in that crooked Arkansas families’ store!

[texastweeter]

Panhead John i hear klflowers goes there to pick up dates in the lady's plus size department, and 58limited sources his typewriter ribbons in the office supply section

[Oak Smoke]

Water and salt are natural. If you can sell that water and salt for the price of beef your P&L sheet will look great.