It may be regional - she's in Norwich.

Or maybe those she knows can't be bothered to actually form hamburger patties themselves, so they buy them with the starchy stuff mixed in and formed, and just cook them without considering what's in them.

Apparently they're just used to it - I don't recall eating a burger when we visited except for going to Five Guys one time (which was all beef, because that's what Five Guys serves).

I do recall DD1 was telling me that this sausage or that sausage was really good, but I couldn't hack the overwhelming taste of flour in them.



Adding stuff like that to ground beef reminds me a little bit of the cheap "blend 'o beef" that was available back in the 70's - it was ground beef with soy protein mixed into it. You had to read the small print to figure out what was different about it, but it was so much cheaper than the 70% ground beef that it was a way you could have something sort of meaty-tasting on a poor newlywed/college student's budget.