Just in time for Memorial Day, a recently-released survey may change the way that you look at hamburgers.
"The Hamburger Report" by Clear Labs tested burgers from 79 brands and 22 retailers in northern California and made some discoveries that some may find disturbing.
The lab said that of 258 samples it tested, it found
- 2 cases of meat in vegetarian products
- 1 black bean burger with no black beans
- 4.3 percent of products contained pathogenic DNA
- 3 cases of rat DNA
- 1 case of human DNA
The rat DNA was found in a fast food burger, a vegetarian burger and a ground meat sample. The human DNA was found in a frozen vegetarian burger, likely from hair, skin or fingernail that was actually mixed during manufacturing, Clear Labs said.
The lab notes that while it may make your stomach turn, the presence of human DNA or rat DNA isn't likely to be harmful for human health.
"What many consumers don't know is that some amounts of human and rat DNA may fall within an acceptable regulatory range," Clear Labs writes. (Editor's note: Who knew?)
The study analyzed ground meat, frozen patties, fast food burger products and veggie burger products. The company claims "no outside partners, companies, customers, or other entities had any influence on or contribution to the research and testing."
According to the study, fast food restaurants showed low rates of contamination, but there were "substantial discrepancies between the reported nutritional values on fast food menus and the nutritional values of fast food burger products we observed in our testing."
More bad news for non-meat eaters: the study claims 23.6 percent of vegetarian products showed some form of discrepancy between the product and label. That's compared to 13.5 percent of all samples.
"We found pervasive issues in food quality and end-product consistency in these non-meat samples," the lab reports.
While the news may seem bad for burger lovers, the study's writers do note, "..,our findings suggest that the beef industry as a whole has benefited from stringent regulation and aggressive testing requirements."
Not surprisingly, the news isn't going over well with the meat industry. In an interview with CNBC, Mandy Carr, the senior executive director of science and product solutions for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said that the samples could have been contaminated in the labs they were tested in.
"Unfortunately, this particular report I don't find very helpful in helping us improve safety," CNBC quotes Carr as saying. "And, frankly, I am concerned that it would cause consumer confusion."
Clear Lab is a company founded by software engineers and genomic scientists "to index the world's food supply and set worldwide standards for food integrity." They offer their services to food brands to "secure their supply chains and to differentiate their brands."
In a previous study, the company said it found traces of human DNA in hot dogs.
