Human "Tissue" Found In Burger Meat

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Identifying the species contained in a piece of droëwors or burger patty is not as simple as pulling it apart and examining it under a microscope. Stellenbosch University used established DNA sequencing technologies as one of the methods to unravel the extent of mislabelling in the South African meat market.

DNA sequencing is the process of determining the precise order of nucleotides within a DNA molecule. Termed the ‘blueprint of life’, these molecules determine who and what you are. Or rather in this case, what you are eating.

While the main study was done by Dr Donna-Maree Cawthorn and Prof Louw Hoffman of the Department of Animal Sciences, they relied on the DNA Sequencing Unit at Stellenbosch University’s Central Analytical Facilities to peek into the smallest part of a sausage’s DNA.

According to DNA analyst, Miss René Veikondis, they allow the researchers to visualise the piece of DNA in which they are interested: “They bring a DNA sample in a miniscule plastic vial, and we hand them back the DNA sequence in a readable text file.”

But first the researchers had to do quite a bit of work to identify the region in the genome that could be used to pinpoint the species contained in the meat products. “In other words, there is a specific section of the DNA where the combination of the nucleotides will indicate whether this is a donkey or a water buffalo or a kangaroo,” she explains.

These sections are then cleaned up in the lab and prepared for analysis. This means that the different species could be identified by looking at less than 1 000 of the billions of building blocks in the DNA cocktail provided. The technology used is similar to those used in paternity tests and forensic analysis in crime investigations.

While DNA sequencing hails from processes developed back in the 1970s, the researchers showed that DNA-based methods can be powerful and highly-applicable tools to monitor the meat industry and support law enforcement.

Did you know?

The combined length of all the DNA molecules in a single human cell can measure up to a few meters if stretched out in a single long thread and consist of over one billion building blocks called nucleotides. The nucleotides are organised into minute structures called chromosomes and these range between 200 nanometres to 20 micrometres in length – in other words a millionth to a thousandth of a millimetre. According to some calculations the combined length of DNA in all cells in a single human body roughly equates to 70 trips to the sun and back to earth.

 

Soylent Green

 

The South African finding bring to mind the movie Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton Heston and, in his final film, Edward G. Robinson. The film overlays the police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution, overpopulation, depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans, and a hot climate due to the greenhouse effect. Much of the population survives on processed food rations, including “soylent green”.

Soylent Green movie poster

In 2022, with 40 million people in New York City alone, housing is dilapidated and overcrowded; homeless people fill the streets and food is scarce; and most of the population survives on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation, whose newest product is Soylent Green, a green wafer advertised to contain “high-energy plankton”, more nutritious and palatable than its predecessors “Red” and “Yellow”, but in short supply.

New York City Police Department detective Robert Thorn lives with his aged friend Solomon “Sol” Roth, a former scholar who helps Thorn’s investigations.

Roth takes Soylent’s oceanographic reports to a like-minded group of researchers known as the Exchange, who agree that the oceans no longer produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is reputedly made, and conclude it is made from human remains. Unable to live with this discovery, Roth seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic called “Home”. Thorn rushes to stop him, but arrives too late, and is mesmerized by the euthanasia process’s visual and musical montage— a display of forests, wild animals, rivers, and ocean life, now extinct. Under the influence of a lethal drug, Roth tells Thorn his discovery and begs him to expose the truth. To this end, Thorn stows himself aboard a garbage truck to the disposal-center, where he sees human corpses converted into Soylent Green. Returning to make his report, he is ambushed by Fielding and others; and having failed to summon his colleagues, converses with Shirl before connected to Hatcher. Thorn then retreats into a cathedral filled with homeless people, where he kills Fielding but is seriously injured. When the police arrive, Thorn urges Hatcher to spread the word that “Soylent Green is people!”.

Contacts and sources:

Stellenbosch University 

Economic Crisis.