Food quality in Russia is declining by leaps and bounds

Imitation ham

Everyone knows what is happening today in domestic grocery stores, but the Crimean journalist Viktor Yadukha, decided to summarize his observations on this subject and published such an interesting list:

The assortment of sausages in the local Metro has decreased by three times, if not more.

Cheese "Lambert", still quite decent in autumn, is now tasteless sticky clay in which all knives get stuck. Lying in the fridge until they threw it away

Butter "Dzhankoyskoe", bought for 850 rubles / kg in a decent store, turned out to be the purest margarine. It turns out that it is possible.

Activia kefir, from Pud, the only convenience store chain on the peninsula, caused symptoms of acute poisoning in two people and was thrown away. Production date - fresh.

Two of the three lemons bought there were affected by some kind of hard rot, indistinguishable until cut.

The invariably delicious rye loaf "Pokrovsky" of the local producer "Tsar-Khleb" lost the smell of cumin, began to instantly become stale, and most importantly - cause heartburn. We took every day, now we do not take

"Smoked on cherry" sausage factory "Druzhba Narodov": instead of the usual minced meat and the aroma of natural smoked meat - rubber imitation ham sprinkled with brine.

The Americano biscuits, bought at a permanent location, have lost their familiar plasticity to such an extent that they scatter all over the room when bitten. Date of baking: fresh.

“And all this in one month. I don't want to talk about the reasons, they are obvious. If earlier the spiritual simulacra around us could at least be eaten with natural food, now the search for the real has turned into an irresistible quest through the bullshit jungle.” - Yaduha completes his review, and his readers add that the same thing happens in all stores in the country.

Less is better

To explain how exactly food manufacturers achieve such "successes", we will give a typical example.

They are known to use two methods to avoid shocking buyers too much with new prices:

- Produce a product in a smaller package, but with the same price tag.

- Replace expensive ingredients with cheaper ones to reduce the cost of goods. For example, use inexpensive vegetable fat or replace animal protein with soy isolate. Most often, high-quality meat protein is replaced with cheaper one.

“In general, Russia differs from the whole world in terms of the “price-quality” ratio of products. We have very voracious retail chains, the margins of which are not particularly regulated. And a person, buying a sausage with minced chicken in the composition, is perplexed how it manages to cost like an airplane.

For comparison, anything can be made in Germany, but only the myosin component (myosin is one of the main components of muscle contractile fibers) will be considered to comply with protein standards in the product.

We have canceled all GOSTs. Some sausages are an exception, but the former Soviet standards for them have been significantly weakened. The people will refuse to eat real sausage now ... ”- blogger Alexander Gorbunov notes in his channel.

By the way, a few years ago, experts conducted such an unusual experiment: one of the sausage factories at one of the exhibitions produced the legendary "Doctor's" sausage according to the classic recipe: 30% beef, 65% lean pork, 5% egg powder, milk powder and spices. But the consumer was not impressed! Especially the look. No pink color (sodium nitrite gives it) or a smooth texture (helped by emulsifiers and stabilizers). So it turns out that today Russian manufacturers even inject whole-muscle products like boiled pork and carbonate. They can be seen from the moisture and brine released under vacuum packaging.

Russian yogurts use "Meat Glue"

And one more very illustrative example. As you know, genetically modified organisms are banned in our country, but the GMO enzyme transglutaminase is found in 10% of Russian products. And in 2019-2020, it was found in 35% of meat, fish, bakery and dairy products, Gazeta.ru reports.

This transglutaminase is also called “meat glue”, it is an enzyme that naturally “crosslinks” glutamine and lysine in our body, Pavel Petukhov, Deputy General Director of Hema, explained in an interview. The Japanese were the first to learn how to get it artificially back in 1969 with the help of GMOs. It is this cheap artificial transglutaminase that glues minced meat and fish, pieces of meat, rolls, preventing the sausage from falling apart when cut.

This enzyme cannot be called safe. Petukhov recommended that people with celiac disease, genetic intolerance to gliadin or gluten be especially careful with it. He also highlighted the possible consequences of consuming transglutaminase:

- The formation of microadhesions and disruption of the intestinal mucosa - when eaten, the same in the lungs - when inhaled (the enzyme is used in powder). Moreover, no one warns cooks and workers of food enterprises about the consequences.

- Possible allergy to GMO protein.

- An unpredictable reaction of the body to various growth hormones and other chemistry, which the manufacturers of the GMO enzyme are silent about.

Alzheimer's disease is also attributed to transglutaminase, but this has not yet been proven.

According to Petukhov, the protein is deactivated when it is heated to a temperature of 65°C for 40 minutes. But this is not done in any sausage production. What can we say about yoghurts, cottage cheese and cheeses, where such temperature effects are not provided at all.

Transglutaminase is added to yoghurts so that proteins do not leave with whey - it is needed for retention and stabilization. The structure of the product becomes denser.

Yogurt producers have two options:

- Purchase high-quality sourdough, the cost of which is around 1.5 thousand rubles per ton. Good milk and ideal conditions are needed for production.

— Buy starter for 100 rubles and transglutaminase for 100 rubles. The output will be the same, even when using reconstituted milk.