The End of the Doner?

If you ever spent any time in Germany....you've probably tried the doner as a lunch time fast-food item.

The doner kebab will be said of Turkish origins, but that's mostly false.  It was originally developed in West Berlin by a Turk, and I suspect his intention was to reinvent the Greek gypros.  It's basically cheaper meat (usually beef) cooked on a vertical rotisserie.  You shave the meat off in strips....pile it into pita bread, stuff it with salad (typically tomato, lettuce, onions, chillis, and then add some 'mystery' sauce).  Turks will argue day and night about the mystery sauce....each doing it a different way.

Then you come to this one last ingredient of the doner.....somewhere in the process, you will involve phosphate.  Here, you have this division that has occurred.  The health industry (the nutrition experts) will say this is BAD (real bad).  The doner industry will say that this is the real item which adds taste to the doner.

Well....this comes up in the news today with the EU.

The Environment Committee of the EU wants to forbid the addition of phosphate in the kebab. Chief reason?  Well, there's been documented research to show that the cardiovascular system is negatively affected.

Why was phosphate ever added into the process?  This gets down to various tests conducted decades ago and people found that it binds water to the meat as it cooks.  In other words, when you carve the doner off the spit....it won't be dry-tasting.

What happens after the forbidding of phosphate for doners?  I'm guessing it'll take less than five years for the dish to disappear from menu options because folks get all upset about a dried-up cooked-up meat dish.  Some folks will slip by....secretly using phosphate (calling it a different name probably), and some cops will get called out to investigate their doner action.  Maybe some guy will find another chemical for the replacement of the phosphate, but my guess is that it'll also be considered bad for your health and be dumped upon very quickly.

Phosphate used in Coke?  Well....yeah..  So, I'm only taking a guess here but the nutrition 'police' will go after them shortly and force Coke to dump the ingredient, and cause it to lose it's taste as well.

I would hate to suggest it, but I suspect in thirty years that most Europeans will be grumbling about the beverages and foods they have....with no real taste.  As each year came, and the EU regulated more and more things....there will be consequences.