Walmart Shopper Sees Ground Turkey for $1.98. Is This Walmart’s Most Polarizing Product?: ‘It’s Under $2 so I Just Mind My Business’

Meat products are probably one of the only grocery items customers don’t necessarily like seeing heavily discounted. Because fresh meat is both pricey and associated with such a short period of freshness, seeing it sold for next to nothing can make shoppers wonder whether something is wrong with it.

That’s likely what prompted one Walmart customer, TikTok creator @gemini52400, to ask viewers whether a package of ground turkey selling for $1.98 checks the mark of safety or not.

In a video that got over 1.4 million views, she picks up a roll of Festive ground turkey. Near the bottom, the packaging reads, “With mechanically separated turkey added.”

“Have y’all ever had this meat from Walmart?” she asks in the video. “It’s $1.98. It’s ground turkey.”

People Found The Walmart Ground Turkey Highly Suspicious

In the comments, viewers started making some pretty hilarious “guesses” about what could possibly be inside a tube of meat this cheap.

“That’s raccoon ankles,” one commenter wrote.

“Baby that’s planktons chum from the chum bucket,” another joked.

“For $1.98 a pound that could be hamster meat and im still buying it,” another viewer wrote.

Of course, consumers should be able to expect that the name on a meat package accurately reflects what’s actually inside. Poultry products sold in the U.S. fall under federal labeling and inspection requirements through the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

However, some viewers were particularly concerned about one phrase on the package.

“‘Mechanically separated turkey added’ I’m [expletive] good,” one commenter wrote.

What Does Mechanically Separated Mean For Meat Products?

“Mechanically separated” sounds a lot more alarming than what it actually is.

Manufacturers use machines to recover small amounts of edible meat that remain attached to bones instead of wasting it like in other types of meat production.

USDA requires manufacturers to disclose whenever they use this process.

The agency describes mechanically separated meat as a paste-like or batter-like product made by forcing bones with attached edible tissue through a sieve or similar device under high pressure. The machine separates most of the bone from the soft tissue, leaving behind a very finely textured meat mixture.

Manufacturers can then use that meat in products such as hot dogs, sausages, luncheon meats, patties, or nuggets. In this case, it was added to ground turkey,

While mechanically separated turkey is completely safe to eat, it is also not the healthiest option since it’s so processed.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, says that regular consumption of processed meat is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. In the studies it reviewed, eating about 50 grams of processed meat daily was associated with an 18% increase in relative risk.

@gemini52400 $1.98 for some ground turkey ??? #walmart #fyp #viral ♬ original sound – gemini52400

The Mary Sue has reached out to Walmart via its contact form and @gemini52400 via direct messages for comment.

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