Meat Glue, Banned Drugs, and the 1958 Loophole That Made It All Legal

A recording recently leaked of Martin Bally, who at the time was Vice President at Campbell's, one of the biggest food companies in America. On the tape he says, "We have shit for fucking poor people. Who buys our shit?" He says, "It's not healthy now that I know what's in it." He says he doesn't want to eat chicken that came from a 3D printer.

He was fired days later. Florida's Attorney General launched an investigation. Campbell's called his comments "vulgar, offensive, and false." But what I wanted to know is, what does he and other executives know that we don't?

So I spent the last few weeks doing some digging. The steak you order at a restaurant can be made with glue, and they don't have to tell you. There are drugs in your pork that are banned in over 150 countries. There are ingredients in your food so toxic that when one of them spilled off a truck in Chicago, they evacuated half a mile and sent in a hazmat team. And it has gotten so out of control that lawmakers are now requiring companies to slap a label on your food that reads "not recommended for human consumption."

Here is what I found.

Meat glue, the enzyme turning scraps into "premium" steaks

It's called transglutaminase. The meat industry calls it meat glue. It bonds cheap meat scraps into what looks like a premium whole cut. It's made through bacterial fermentation of a microbe called Streptomyces mobaraensis, and it's manufactured by Ajinomoto, the same company behind MSG and aspartame, two of the most controversial food additives in history.

In 2021, a review published in the journal Toxins found that transglutaminase increases intestinal permeability, which is a fancy way of saying it pokes holes in your gut lining. Think of your gut lining like a coffee filter. It is supposed to let the good stuff through and keep the bad stuff out. When holes form, undigested food, bacteria, and toxins slip into your bloodstream. Your immune system panics and attacks, and that is what inflammation is.

Russia banned it in 2020. In the US it is still legal. The FDA classified it as Generally Recognized as Safe under a system called GRAS, and we are going to come back to that name in a minute.

On packaged meat it has to be labelled "formed meat," so reading the back of the package will save you. At restaurants, no disclosure is required. Your waiter has no obligation to tell you. Food safety attorney Bill Marler put it plainly, that meat glue is used more than people think, and the industry isn't giving consumers the whole picture. There's also a serious safety problem on top of the gut issue. When you take scraps and glue them into one piece, any surface bacteria like E. coli or salmonella gets folded into the centre. Searing the outside would normally kill it. But now it is trapped inside, people order the steak medium-rare, and the inside never gets hot enough.

Ractopamine, the drug banned in 150 countries that's still in American pork

Ractopamine belongs to a class of drugs originally designed to open up airways for asthma patients. Scientists noticed a side effect, that it stimulated muscle growth, so the livestock industry repurposed it. It mimics your body's stress hormones and forces animals to convert feed into lean muscle faster. Roughly 10% better feed efficiency, about 3 extra kilograms of lean muscle per pig.

The FDA based its approval on studies conducted by Elanco, the same company that manufactures the drug. They studied their own product, and the studies didn't even focus on whether it was safe for humans. They focused on the most economical dosage. The only human study involved six healthy young men. Three of them reported severe heart pounding. One had to be withdrawn from the study because his heart was racing so badly.

The FDA approved it for pigs in 1999, cattle in 2003, and turkeys in 2008. Since then, the agency has received over 160,000 formal reports of pigs getting sick or dying after being fed this drug, including reports of broken limbs, inability to walk, heart failure, and death. Cris Birky, a pig farmer from Kouts, Indiana, says he quit giving it to his pigs after watching them turn purplish, shake, and die from heart attacks.

Most livestock drugs require a two-week clearance period before slaughter. Ractopamine has none. It is fed to pigs right up until the day they die. When Consumer Reports tested 240 pork products, they found it in one out of every five. The EU, China, and Russia have banned it. The US doesn't even test for it.

Carbon monoxide packaging, the gas that keeps two-year-old beef pink

The industry calls it modified atmosphere packaging. What it actually is, is carbon monoxide injected into meat packaging. The gas binds to myoglobin, the protein that gives meat its red colour, and locks in that bright red colour permanently. The meat stays looking fresh no matter how old it actually is.

The EU's Scientific Committee found that the colour can last beyond the actual microbial shelf life of the meat. Translation: the meat could be crawling with bacteria and still look perfectly fresh to you. At a Congressional hearing in Washington, lawmakers displayed a piece of beef that was two years old. It still looked bright pink. At a separate hearing in Chicago, when an official asked a Cargill executive whether consumers have a right to know their meat is treated with carbon monoxide, his response was, quote, "I don't think they really would care to know."

I think I would care. The EU banned it. Japan banned it. Singapore banned it. In the US, it is still legal.

Azodicarbonamide, the yoga mat chemical in your bread

This one is not in meat. It is in roughly 500 food products across 130 brands, mostly bread. It is the same chemical used in yoga mats, shoe soles, and foam rubber. The purpose is to create air bubbles. In rubber it makes things spongy. In bread it conditions the dough so it rises higher and holds more air.

Here is the story that says it all. In 2001, a truck carrying this stuff flipped on Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway. Two residential towers were evacuated. One of the busiest highways in the city was shut down for hours. Firefighters on scene were treated for chemical exposure. So when this stuff falls off a truck, they clear buildings, close highways, and send in hazmat crews. But when you put it in a loaf of bread and sell it at Walmart, that'll be $4.99 please.

When you bake azodicarbonamide, it breaks down into two byproducts: semicarbazide, which has been shown to cause cancer in mice, and urethane, which is a recognized carcinogen. The WHO's cancer research arm has said urethane probably causes cancer in humans. It is banned in the EU. In Singapore, using it in food carries heavy fines and even potential prison time. Subway only removed it in 2014, and it took a petition with 92,000 signatures to make that happen. The FDA says it is under review.

The 1958 loophole that made all of this legal

So how is any of this legal? The answer goes back to September 6th, 1958. President Eisenhower signed something called the Food Additives Amendment, and buried inside it was a system called GRAS, Generally Recognized as Safe. The original idea was actually reasonable. Things like salt, vinegar, flour, and pepper, ingredients humans had used for centuries, didn't need to go through a formal FDA approval process.

But the law included a loophole. It said that companies could determine on their own that an ingredient was generally recognized as safe. Without telling the FDA, without independent testing, without anyone checking their work.

Since the year 2000, the vast majority of new food chemicals have been approved through this self-certification system. Not by the FDA, by the companies selling the food. A 2013 study looked at 451 of these GRAS safety determinations and found that every single one of them, all 451, relied on expert opinions from either manufacturer employees or consultants the manufacturer hired, with zero independent review.

And it gets worse. If the FDA actually raises concerns about an ingredient, the company can withdraw its GRAS notice, hire its own contractor to re-certify it, and put it right back in your food. Imagine if school worked that way, where you fail an exam and the teacher says that's alright, just go home, mark it yourself, and bring it back. RFK Jr. directed the FDA in March 2025 to close this loophole, and the FDA proposed a rule in September 2025 requiring mandatory notices, but as I'm writing this, the loophole is still open.

What Campbell's actually got right

Now, if I am going to hold the food industry accountable, I have to be fair across the board. Martin Bally was a vice president in Campbell's IT department. He had no connection to how the food is actually made. Campbell called his claims patently absurd, and on the 3D-printed meat, they're right. There's no 3D-printed chicken being sold. I can confirm that.

But Campbell did confirm that their products contain bioengineered food ingredients. It is on the label. They say it refers to genetically modified crops like canola, corn, and soybean, not the chicken. So the chicken is real. Everything else may not be. Bally's claim about printed meat may be off, but when he says "it's not healthy now that I know what's in it," he is pretty spot on.

The labels are coming

For the first time, something is actually being done. On June 22nd, 2025, Texas signed Senate Bill 25 into law. It requires a warning label on any food containing any of 44 specific ingredients. The warning reads: "This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom."

The list includes Red 40 and Yellow 5, artificial dyes contaminated with benzidine, a known human carcinogen. Those are in Skittles, Doritos, Gatorade, and Froot Loops. A 2023 study found Red 40 causes DNA damage and triggers inflammation in the colon. Titanium dioxide, a whitening agent also used in paint and sunscreen, is on the list, and it sits in coffee creamer, frosting, and chewing gum. Potassium bromate, a flour additive that caused kidney tumours in animal studies, is banned in the EU, UK, Canada, and Brazil but still in cheap white bread and rolls in the US.

Companies that don't comply face up to $50,000 per day, per product. White House advisor Calley Means confirmed it was the single most lobbied-against bill in Texas in 2025. In December 2025, the American Beverage Association, the Consumer Brands Association, the National Confectioners Association, and FMI filed a federal lawsuit. Their argument is that putting a warning label on food violates their First Amendment right to free speech. I'm no legal expert, I actually dropped out of a law degree halfway through, but I don't think there is legal precedent for the argument that telling people what is in their food is a violation of free speech. A judge issued a preliminary injunction while the case plays out. Assuming the lawsuit fails, the labels go live January 1st, 2027.

Louisiana took a slightly different approach, requiring QR codes you can scan to see flagged ingredients, effective January 2028. Indiana, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Maryland all have similar bills proposed. And companies are already reformulating before the laws even take effect. In December 2025, PepsiCo launched "Simply NKD" versions of Doritos and Cheetos with no artificial dyes or flavours. Kellogg's has committed to removing food colourings by 2027. Kraft Heinz, Hershey, and Tyson have all made verbal commitments.

So the system is finally cracking. But you don't have to wait for a law to protect yourself. Three things I do, and that I'd recommend.

The first is to buy foods with one ingredient. If your steak says "beef," that's it. There is no loophole there. The GRAS system, the meat glue, the CO packaging, the fillers, none of it can touch you when there is nothing to hide behind. The system only works when the ingredient list is long enough to bury things in.

The second is to choose better stores. Whole Foods, Kroger, and Publix have publicly stated they don't use carbon monoxide packaging, even without a federal ban requiring them to. Some retailers set standards above the FDA minimum, others just meet the legal baseline. Look for the ones that publish clear sourcing and packaging policies.

The third is to go local when you can. A local butcher knows the farm. They know what the cows are fed, and whether anything funny is going on. There is no industrial supply chain to hide behind, which means no meat glue, no ractopamine, no CO packaging. And look, not everyone has access to a local butcher or a farmers market. Even supermarket meat with some additives is still better than ultra-processed junk. Don't let perfect stop you from doing what you can.

The simplest thing you can do today, for free, is flip the package over and read the ingredients. If there's only one, you're good.