Meat treated with ammonium hydroxide.

By now you may have seen the bizarre photo of pink goo – more milkshake than meat – which in reality was a pre-production hamburger patty, treated with ammonium hydroxide, a chemical found in household cleaners and fertilizer. It’s also used to kill bacteria. It was also used in burgers from fast food giants like McDonald’s and Burger King.

But no more.

British tabloid The Daily Mail reports that McDonald’s ended the practice in the summer. The paper credited celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign against meat treated with ammonium hydroxide as a catalyst for the decision, but McDonald’s denied that. The Daily Mail reported that Taco Bell and Burger King have also ended the practice.

Oliver shocked audiences when he showed how meat – the cuts often left to make dog food – made its way into restaurants, school lunches and home kitchens.

I also came across some information about the bizarre, but oh-so-tasty, delicacy is the McRib, the limited-time-only meat patty that is literally shaped in a pan to look like pork ribs.

Chicago Magazine explains the evolution of the McRib, invented by Meat Industry Hall of Famer Roger Mandigo, and why it is so darn limited.

Here’s how Mandigo and two co-authors
described the general process in a
1995 article, the process which gives
us the McRib:

Restructured meat products are
commonly manufactured by using
lower-valued meat trimmings reduced in
size by comminution (flaking,
chunking, grinding, chopping or
slicing). The comminuted meat mixture
is mixed with salt and water to
extract salt-soluble proteins. These
extracted proteins are critical to
produce a “glue” which binds muscle
pieces together. These muscle pieces
may then be reformed to produce a
“meat log” of specific form or shape.
The log is then cut into steaks or
chops which, when cooked, are similar
in appearance and texture to their
intact muscle counterparts.

Mandigo explained the principle behind
restructured meat products in Food
Chains: From Farmyard to Shopping
Cart:

“Most people would be extremely
unhappy if they were served heart or
tongue on a plate,” he observed. “But
flaked into a restructured product it
loses its identity. Such products as
tripe, heart, and scalded stomachs are
high in protein, completely edible,
wholesome, and nutritious, and most
are already used in sausage without
objection.” Pork patties could be
shaped into any form and marketed in
restaurants or for airlines, solving a
secondary problem of irregular portion
size of cuts such as pork chops. In
1981 McDonald’s introduced a boneless
pork sandwich of chunked and formed
meat called the McRib, developed in
part through check-off funds
[micro-donations from pork producers]
from the NPPC [National Pork Producers
Council]. It was not as popular as the
McNugget, introduced in 1983, would
be, even though both products were
composed of unmarketable parts of the
animal (skin and dark meat in the
McNugget). The McNugget, however,
benefited from positive consumer
associations with chicken, even though
it had none of the “healthy”
attributes people associated with
poultry.

In other words, the McRib, or at least
the restructured meat products like
it, consists of staples–or even
specialties–of other cuisines.

As for why it comes and goes, it’s not due to a marketing campaign. It’s not even a case of demand. It’s all supply, according to the Lincoln, Neb. Journal-Star:

And to this day, the McRib comes and
goes from the McDonald’s menu for
reasons that have to do with its
intense popularity and a national
supply of pork trimmings that’s
typically a lot more limited than the
supply of beef trimmings.

“If you suddenly start to buy a large
amount of that material,” said
Mandigo, “the price starts to rise.”

As the cost to McDonald’s rises, the
McRib tends to go out of circulation
again. And then the same parts of a
hog tend to flow back into the
processing lines for Spam, Vienna
sausages and other specialized
products.