Freshness Is in the Eye of the Beholder, or "Seeing Red"

Visual confirmation of events is often a benchmark of validity. People often quip, "I saw it with my own two eyes" or "Seeing is believing." Informal secondhand verbal or written accounts often pale in comparison to a priori visual data. After all, Julius Caesar didn't say, "I came, I heard about what was happening from some guy, I conquered."

Although I personally believe people align their peepers too closely with what they consider reality--after all, it's the mind that translates those images--I distrust most of my senses to a certain extent. It's not that I have an insecurity complex--I just believe that our sensory inputs can prove quite relative when we get down to brass tacks.

It's no hidden secret that consumers frequently don't quite get the whole scientific picture when it comes to the idiosyncrasies of available foods and beverages.

Case in point: High-fructose corn syrup? Bad. Evaporated cane juice? Good.

That's fine as long as we're just wading in the waters of opinion. But don't fool yourself. From a health perspective, the body does not know the difference. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Period. Spin me in any direction you want, says the good doctor…

Anyway, back to Caesar (id est, veni, vidi, vici...). Over my morning coffee today, I ran across the following bit on current consumer perception of the practice of using carbon monoxide to preserve the desirable red color in meat: http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/CO_Meat_Consumer_Press_Release_9.25.06.pdf. The biggest statistic from the survey that got me was the conclusion that 63% of consumers surveyed said "the freshness of the meat is directly related to the color of the meat." At first glance, most folks might say, "Well, sure. Red meat is fresher than brown meat." However, appearances can deceive. Oxygen is to blame for the great red disappearing act, not simply time. Oxidized meat, when otherwise properly handled, is perfectly safe to eat. It just isn't as slaughterhouse pretty as bright-red meat. Modified-atmosphere packaging (MAP) also helps keep a wide variety of other foods fresh, including those popular precut, washed salad mixes that consumers love--just don't say "spinach" these days... Here's an industry FAQ on MAP and meat that's worth a read: http://www.beefretail.org/prodMAPUsingCarbonMonoxideFactSheet.aspx.

At a recent National Cattlemen's Beef Association lunch (yes, we ate steak... see http://www.foodproductdesign.com/blogs/doug/?m=art&a=69h19142219.html...), a guy from Cryovac was pitching some of the company's new wares, including packaging options that completely remove oxygen--real form-fitting stuff. With that approach, retailers can get a maximum shelf life from meat products without using MAP (although I bet a combination of the two would be a winner ... and why not throw in a natural antimicrobial like rosemary extract, to boot...). He noted that Wegmens is already carrying such packaged meats, and I bet that we'll start to see more of them around the country.

Although there's nothing wrong with MAP, sometimes it's easier to just circumvent some issues. Combating consumer confusion can sometimes seem like screaming into the void. Science cannot exist in a vacuum.