First, click on the picture below to check out the link.  Then, sit quietly and wait for your stomach to settle.

Shhhh.

When this mess is composed mainly of blended chicken scrapin’s, it goes into chicken nuggets of the bulk frozen variety (although “…McDonald’s famous McNuggets no longer do contain ‘mechanically separated poultry as defined by the federal government…'” — which begs the question, how did they get around that definition?).  When it’s made up random pork and/or poultry, it goes into other pressed and processed meats like bologna, hot dogs, and (sigh) pepperoni.

Granted, I’ve been having stomach issues of late due to a nasty bout of lupus enteritis, so my guts were churning well before I came across this article.  Also: I had cut hot dogs and most pressed and processed meats (except pepperoni, *sigh*) out of my diet years ago (nitrates don’t kill people, the cancers they cause kill people)…but this image and the description of the production process are about to put me right off of anything that I can’t pick from a tree, pluck from the ground, or catch on my own.

Just as my daughter is loosening her stance on vegetarianism (slightly, very slightly!), I’m one more food scare away from becoming a ravening raw foods fiend.

Well, raw foods and the occasional slice of pepperoni purloined from a friend’s pizza slice.

A quick, unrelated note: on Oct. 15th I will be participating in change.org‘s Blog Action Day 2010.  What do I think about water rights?  Stop back on the 15th to find out!