[Eric A. Taylor (OP)]

There is a lot of talk here in the States about a lawsuit claiming that a fast food chain isn't really serving beef. It seems to me that it should be fairly strait forward, just run a DNA test to see if it's really cow meat. Or will any DNA be destroyed by the cooking. Could a sample of the meat be tested before cooking? I know there are ways to test cooked meat. Many years ago a cannibal was caught. He had cooked meat in his freezer and the courts were not only able to prove it was human, but also WHO it had been.

Personally I think it's some kind of hydro-carbon...maybe even plastic.

[Jolly- Joliver]

There is a lot of talk here in the States about a lawsuit claiming that a fast food chain isn't really serving beef. It seems to me that it should be fairly strait forward, just run a DNA test to see if it's really cow meat. Or will any DNA be destroyed by the cooking. Could a sample of the meat be tested before cooking? I know there are ways to test cooked meat. Many years ago a cannibal was caught. He had cooked meat in his freezer and the courts were not only able to prove it was human, but also WHO it had been.

Personally I think it's some kind of hydro-carbon...maybe even plastic.

Yeah I think the issue is a different one, not the animal the meat comes from but which part of the animal is actually being used.

Apparently intestine, eyes, bones and many other parts of a cow could be ground up and added to a beef patty to increase it's size.

So when people say it's not beef, what they are probably saying is it's not made from the meat of the animal, but from other parts of the animal.