The Mechanically-Separated Chicken Photo

So a lot of blogs have been posting this gross photo of what is supposed to be mechanically-separated chicken lately! It started with Buzzfeed picking up the photo from a tumblog that didn't via the source (Gizmodo and Geekologie picked it up as well). The process to get at this chicken slurry is pretty freaky though. Time to quote Wikipedia!

Mechanically separated meat (MSM), also known as mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat (MRM), is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing beef, pork, turkey or chicken bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue.

So where's this picture from? It's hard to tell. The photo is on Flickr, dating back to January 2009, but cites Wikipedia as the source. Wikipedia, in turn, pulled the image because "the copyright status is unclear."

Also back in 2009, the photo showed up in a lot of blogs, but all point to Wikipedia as the source. A chicken and egg scenario. Or should we say a mechanically-separated chicken and egg scenario?

The photo even landed on the Cheezburger network website Totally Looks Like (uncredited of course), comparing it to strawberry soft-serve:

Anyway, there's your photo of mechanically-separated chicken. Want to see a video? Yeah you do!

Video: Mechanically-Separated Chicken

· automatic poultry deboner [YouTube]