The Great Meat Glue Panic: When Online Conspiracies Meet Reality
There’s a discussion bubbling away online about whether our major supermarkets are using “meat glue” to piece together steaks from offcuts. Someone posted a video of their eye fillet falling apart in the pan, and naturally, the internet did what it does best: jumped to the most dramatic conclusion possible.
Look, I get it. The relationship between Australian consumers and Colesworth has become increasingly strained. When you’re paying premium prices for what should be quality products, only to have them fall short of expectations, suspicion is a natural response. But sometimes a dodgy steak is just a dodgy steak, not evidence of a grand conspiracy.
The meat glue theory is particularly compelling because it sounds plausible. We’ve all seen those viral American TikToks exposing questionable food practices, and transglutaminase (the technical term for meat glue) is indeed a real thing used in the food industry. The problem is, reality is considerably more boring than the conspiracy suggests.
Several actual butchers weighed in on this discussion, and their responses were refreshingly pragmatic. One with 15 years of experience explained that while meat glue exists and is legal in Australia (when properly labelled), it’s actually not economically viable for supermarkets to use it on regular steaks. The stuff costs around $200 per kilogram in powder form – though to be fair, a little goes a long way. It’s occasionally used in boutique butcheries to join eye fillet tails into the main body for a more uniform appearance, but that’s about it.
The more likely explanation for supermarket meat disappointments? It’s about processing and storage. Meat that’s cut at extremely low temperatures and packaged immediately retains far more liquid than meat from a traditional butcher, where the carcass has time to dry at various stages. When you cook that supermarket steak, all that retained moisture comes flooding out, and what you thought was a 250-gram piece of meat might actually be significantly less once the water weight disappears.
I’ve definitely noticed this myself. There’s nothing quite as deflating as watching a promising-looking piece of beef release a small lake of liquid into your pan, essentially boiling rather than searing. The mince is particularly guilty of this – I’ve stood there watching it simmer in its own juice, waiting ages for the liquid to cook off before any browning can even begin.
The person who posted that video probably just got sold the wrong cut entirely. The consensus from people who actually know their way around a carcass was that it looked like butterflied eye fillet tail or possibly rib eye that had been mangled somehow. Either way, definitely worth taking back for a refund.
What frustrates me about these situations is the erosion of trust and expertise. Woolworths and Coles have systematically removed qualified butchers from their stores, replacing them with pre-packaged products and minimum-wage workers who can’t tell you the difference between a scotch fillet and a rump. When something goes wrong, there’s no one to turn to who actually understands what you’re looking at.
This is where shopping at an actual butcher makes such a difference. Sure, they might be closed on Sundays (though apparently ethnic butchers – Afghan, Turkish, Asian – often trade seven days a week), but the quality control and knowledge base is incomparable. You’re dealing with someone who can explain why a particular cut looks the way it does, who can advise on cooking methods, and who has a reputation to maintain beyond quarterly shareholder reports.
The environmental and ethical implications of this race-to-the-bottom approach to food retail genuinely worry me. When we prioritise convenience and rock-bottom prices above everything else, we end up with a system that treats food as just another commodity to be processed as quickly and cheaply as possible. The farmers get squeezed, the workers get squeezed, quality control becomes an afterthought, and consumers end up with inferior products while Colesworth rake in record profits.
That said, I don’t think spreading unfounded conspiracy theories about meat glue helps anyone. It muddies the waters and makes it harder to have legitimate conversations about real problems: the monopolistic control of our grocery market, the treatment of suppliers, the disappearance of skilled trades from our supermarkets, and the genuine quality issues with mass-produced meat products.
The solution isn’t to panic about meat glue. It’s to vote with your wallet when you can. Support local butchers. Question why we’ve accepted that two companies should control such a vast portion of our food supply. Push for better labelling requirements and stronger consumer protections. And when you do get a genuinely dodgy product from Colesworth, take it back and demand a refund – that’s data they actually pay attention to.
Next time I’m tempted by the convenience of grabbing meat from Woolies, I might just think about that pool of mystery liquid in the pan and make the extra effort to hit the butcher instead. Even if I have to plan ahead a bit more, at least I’ll know what I’m actually paying for.