The finished product of the Collaborative Research Project is very telling. My research team and I included many pertinent facts about ammonia that we believe to be somewhat “unknown” by the public eye, which was ultimately what we had planned. Our goal was to explore the ways in which ammoniated beef threatened the average consumer’s health, although there was much discrepancy with what we intended to discover through research and what was actually disclosed. The result of much research left us with a very open conclusion, which remains that as of now, no studies or tests have been conducted to reveal detrimental effects of using ammonia as a sterilizing agent in beef. What has been unveiled is that there have been many instances in which the ammonia hasn’t completely “cleansed” the beef of pathogens, as beef manufacturing companies had to adhere to the safety regimens of injecting qualifying amounts of ammonia.

            To my surprise, my group and I could have never conducted and completed a full-length collaborative research project had it not been for Google Docs. Using Good Docs gave us a medium through which we could all collaborate by sharing ideas, editing, revising, and brainstorming for further research. It provided us a blank slate for our research to expand and our ideas to flourish.

            The finished product is a multi-modal approach to exploring, through extended research, ammonia in beef. The piece informs the reader as it provides facts about the scientific background and uses of ammonia, the regulatory pH levels of ammonia in beef, the effects of injecting beef with ammonia, the reasons why beef is injected with ammonia, and alternatives for using ammonia in beef.  Furthermore, the product includes Beef Product Inc.’s (BPI) official website, an informative video about ammonia filler, and a graphic that represents a survey conducted by our group.

             As it stands, the piece is a lucid reflection of the result of frustrated researchers searching for an answer they thought they were going to find. Although the product did not reveal what the group had expected it to reveal, the result is effective in that it exposes the intricacies of ammonia usage and it allows the reader to become an active consumer. Ultimately, we provided the foundation for ammoniated beef to be pondered…and possibly questioned.

 
            My Collaborative Research project served as a very productive learning experience. It all began with the movie Food, Inc.. Throughout the movie I was disgusted, shocked, and enlightened all in one sitting. I felt my jaw drop quite a few times and I found myself (as dramatic as I am) gasping with concern. Despite my disgust, I continued to watch the movie and jotted down some possible themes for the project. Some of the runner-ups included the idea of engineering new foods, Kevin’s Law, the idea that the industry is more protected than consumers, and the Stonyfield Farms. However, it was the churning of my stomach that pointed me towards the theme of ammonia filler. As a recovering fast-food junkie, the notion of chemical injected beef struck a chord with me. So with that topic, I moved forward……..

            I made the decision to collaborate with a group of hard-working members. After all, it wouldn’t have been much of a collaborative research project had I just worked with a partner. With my curiosity in tow, I devised a plan of attack for our research on ammonia. From that, each group member, including myself, chose a chunk of the plan to research. The bulk of my portion included research on the negative, long-term effects of ammonia in beef as they pertained to specific health cases wherein ammonia in beef led to detrimental illness and/or immediate sickness.

            To my dismay, the research process didn’t reveal any instances of specific cases that involved an illness/death/sickness due to digested beef with ammonia filler. I found many road blocks on my way to discovering that there were no such cases that uncovered the “harsh, life threatening truth” that ammonia being injected into beef was dangerous. In fact, I was surprised to discover that the only harm that ammonia actually causes is its less-than-perfect job of ridding beef of E.coli, salmonella, and Listeria. Moreover, it seemed as if there were a limited number of online resources that gave the facts about ammonia in beef. It appeared that there were only about 10 websites with any information about ammonia used as a cleansing agent in food, and most of the sites were mere replicas of one another. The content was the same, but the syntax was different.

            This leads me to question if ammonia in beef truly has no detrimental side effects and has never caused an illness OR if the lack of information about it as a “processing agent” is the food industry’s way of hiding information from consumers to continue making a dynamite profit off of inedible scraps. After all, the food industry feeds off of passive consumers.