This process of mechanical recovery or mechanical seperation or involves stripping meat residues and offal from bone. Usually this is done by directing a high-pressure stream of water at a carcass from which the more valuable cuts of meat have already been cut away. The meaty-bits are torn from the skeleton.

Incompletely removed spinal cord and nerve tissue is often brought along with other undesirable substances. For this reason, mechanically recovered beef is a suspected cause of BSE.

Once recovered, it is normally ground up, spiced, coloured and moulded into shapes that we are more familiar with. For example; Mechanically separated chicken is often re-formed into the approximate shape of a chicken drumstick. Mechanically seperated meats often find themselves into amorphous meat products such as spreads.

This is the cheapest type of meat available. You can be sure that any economy hamburgers, kebabs or sausages include this kind of material.

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