ORLANDO, Fla. – This spring, Americans were disturbed by the idea of pink slime in some beef products. Called "pink slime beef" by consumer advocates, it's a version of ground beef that is treated with ammonia.
Now Local 6 has learned there's a process for poultry carcasses in which they're ground down and used as filler in many popular products in the grocery store.
Food experts at the Center for Science in the Public Interest want this mechanically separated chicken off our plates.
But Dr. Christine Alvarado, an expert in poultry science at Texas A&M University says mechanically separated chicken has been around for years.
Alvarado explained the process and says consumers should really just look at it like leftovers. "A lot of these things are just meant to make our food more efficient, so we cannot waste as much product," said Alvarado.
Alvarado demonstrated the carving of a chicken and said, "You see after you take away the breast, the thighs and the legs, this is what's left. So there's lots of meat that's left on the frame."
That carcass meat is ground together and then pushed through a giant sieve to remove bone and cartilage. What's left over is "mechanically separated chicken."
"It's high quality protein. It may not be in a form of a whole breast muscle that we're used to seeing, like parts in a grocery store, but it is just mainly white meat protein," said Alvarado.
But it's not 100-percent meat either.
"I think it is fair to say that there is pulverized bone, pulverized sinew, tendon, perhaps artery that finds its way into the finished product," said Sarah Klein, a nutrition consumer advocate.
Klein points to the United States Department of Agriculture's own regulations that allow no more than one percent of mechanically separated chicken to be bits of bone.
Klein questioned the USDA, "If a consumer wouldn't eat this on their plate as part of a meal, should we really be including it in their food as a hidden ingredient?"
Alvarado argues, mechanically separated chicken is labeled on all products it's included it saying, "What the label says is what it is."
Food companies are required to list mechanically separated chicken as an ingredient. And when Local 6 walked the grocery aisle, we found it in products like bologna, salami, and hot dogs which are mostly processed deli meats.
We didn't find it in any of the chicken nuggets we shopped for.
And it's not in the nuggets most people think of first. McDonald's says it has not used mechanically separated chicken for its nuggets since 2003.
Consumers also might think mechanically separated chicken would have to be used in the nuggets that are shaped in fun kid-friendly shapes like dinosaur, but those manufacturers say they use minced chicken meat, not mechanically separated chicken.
The best way to know if you're eating mechanically separated chicken that you buy in a store is to read the label.