WASHINGTON, DC - The Food and Drug Administration dealt a stinging blow to the canned meat industry today with a ruling on a popular processed ingredient. Manufacturers of vienna sausages - small, tasty meat-like wieners - have already vowed to fight the decision in court, as the motion declares their main ingredient, 'mechanically separated chicken', unfit for human consumption.
"The industry experts called in to testify couldn't fully describe exactly what mechanically separated chicken is." said Gerald Wellingham, Deputy Chief of the Administration's Enigmatic Ingredients Office. "To us, that's a serious red flag."
"It's really just a matter of semantics." said Dennis Squelch, Executive Director of the Poultry Product Recovery Institute. "The raw product comes in bulk from many different sources, containing a wide variety of organs and tissues. So when the Administration posed the question 'What is the chicken mechanically separated from?' the obvious response was: 'Other parts of the chicken.' Apparently they thought we were being evasive."
Wellingham says the ban will be phased in over a seven year period effective immediately. "We think this may pose a serious health risk and plan to move swiftly and decisively." he said. "We plan to have a steering committee in place within six months."
Industry experts say the chicken producers may want to follow the lead of the beef industry, who successfully lobbied for the "Inside the Hide" ruling in the 1980's. That ruling allowed any internal portion of a cow to be officially designated as 'beef'. "If we did that we could just drop the 'mechanically separated' designation and just call it 'chicken', and carry on with business as usual." said Squelch.
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