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.
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.
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