Are these articles a bit misleading about the "trimmings"? My understanding is that a large part of the controversy is because its not little pieces of "meat" its basically the garbage, tendons, pieces of skin, bits of bone, etc. Sure some of it has meat attached, but the difficulty separating the meat bits from the rest is what requires the intensive liquefaction process. The fact that it happens to liquefy some of the normally inedible parts as well is just a bonus.
Generally speaking when everything has been taken off the carcass, including parts used for animal feed, the remains are blasted by high pressure water. The resulting tissue, much of it membranes and other fascia are then collected and processed. It is as you say, not really meat, it’s mostly a collagen slurry. In the cases of turkey and chicken the term used is “mechanically separated.” You can find that term on any Slim-Jim.
This isn't about mechanically separated chicken or turkey, it's about "Lean finely textured beef (LFTB)", which is actually leaner than the ground meat that it gets mixed in with.
LFTB is not made from mechanically separated meat. It is made from normal boneless beef trimmings. As has been pointed out in response to numerous such claims all over this thread.
