It Took Me A Minute To Pull The Trigger On This One
Really though, why/how did the texture end up that way?
by ariTRON
18 Comments
mart3h
Just a guess, but I think it’s from the brining which makes the muscle fibres “looser”.
cylliana
Nope that’s brains. Braaaaains.
AutopsyDrama
The texture is so off putting.
Accomplished_Lab8945
I thought it was tripe at first
epidemicsaints
Looks like it was frozen, thawed, then sliced. The freezing and thawing causes this honeycomb thing to happen from ice forming… and then the slicing exaggerated it by dragging the meat fibers apart at the weak spots.
DifficultBoss
I thought this was r/Breadit and this was a failed attempt at dough
blueeyedbrainiac
I can never eat turkey deli meat that looks like that thanks to my school growing up having it look like this all the time. It still freaks me out
mensfrightsactivists
“heat n eat”?? who’s out here heating up their deli meat before making a sandwich am i missing something
HelpfulSeaMammal
Hi! Food scientist here. I do product development for a turkey processing plant and am super duper familiar with this defect.
It’s a combination of a bunch of things that ultimately resulted in poor protein extraction and bind. This appears to be some kind of ground and mixed turkey breast, not whole muscle. Getting adequate tackiness at mix is crucial for all of the individual muscle fibers and segments to bind with one another. This looks like something interfered with bind to me.
Notice all of the crescent moon holes, the ones that look like someone pressed their fingernail in the meat? Strong indicator that this didn’t extract enough protein at mix OR that the breast or fillet or scapula (all which can be labeled as breast, btw) had a lot of silverskin attached to it. Silverskin, if not pulled off the breast muscle, will absolutely interfere with binding. It’s like putting a piece of plastic film between two ends of velcro — you need to remove the film entirely for good binding, or poke a bunch of holes in the film to allow some of the velcro fibers to connect for a weak, but acceptable, bind. You end up with a bunch of squiggly lines of gelatin and collagen which then cook out into liquid and leave a hole behind when they’re cooked (and over cooked, at thay– collagen doesn’t break down until 180⁰F ish).
Could also be related to lack of vacuum at mixing or stuffing, but you would typically see perfectly rounded spheres of air trapped in the meat instead of these more irregular shaped holes.
Or over cooking. Or a combination of all of these factors.
Could *also maybe but probably not* be related to a condition called PSE meat, but you’d see other issues related to pH if that were the case.
Here’s what I imagine went down: Processor noticed that their oven roasted turkey breast slicing log was just shredding when they went to slice it, due to poor bind at mix or lack of vac at stuff or over cooking. They decided to pack them into these bulk pack trays and market them as heat and eat instead of routing to inedible or selling as #2 product (ends and pieces, pennies on the dollar, saves some cost but no profit to be made) so it’s a discounted product for immediate sale offload inventory. It’s designed for like a hot turkey sandwich where you’ll just want meat and will load it up with gravy, so you don’t necessarily need perfectly in-tact slices of turkey breast.
CocoCoconutz_
I was like this is TRIPE
Fit_Measurement_550
Mmmmmmm braaaaaainz
Some_Ad_6511
Forget “Heat n Eat”! Gotta set this 💩 on 🔥 and repent for the purchase! $7 & some change is worth so much more than this….
darkoath
Looks more like tripe.
Pigeonorium
I just puked and it had nothing to do with the 10L of beer I drank before seeing this post
lemonloth
This turkey died at least twice.
wolfvisor
This looks like badly proofed dough. How in the world does that happen with turkey
losloowiss
Pull the trigger? Funny phrasing for “turkey” that appears to have been already killed several times over.
18 Comments
Just a guess, but I think it’s from the brining which makes the muscle fibres “looser”.
Nope that’s brains. Braaaaains.
The texture is so off putting.
I thought it was tripe at first
Looks like it was frozen, thawed, then sliced. The freezing and thawing causes this honeycomb thing to happen from ice forming… and then the slicing exaggerated it by dragging the meat fibers apart at the weak spots.
I thought this was r/Breadit and this was a failed attempt at dough
I can never eat turkey deli meat that looks like that thanks to my school growing up having it look like this all the time. It still freaks me out
“heat n eat”?? who’s out here heating up their deli meat before making a sandwich am i missing something
Hi! Food scientist here. I do product development for a turkey processing plant and am super duper familiar with this defect.
It’s a combination of a bunch of things that ultimately resulted in poor protein extraction and bind. This appears to be some kind of ground and mixed turkey breast, not whole muscle. Getting adequate tackiness at mix is crucial for all of the individual muscle fibers and segments to bind with one another. This looks like something interfered with bind to me.
Notice all of the crescent moon holes, the ones that look like someone pressed their fingernail in the meat? Strong indicator that this didn’t extract enough protein at mix OR that the breast or fillet or scapula (all which can be labeled as breast, btw) had a lot of silverskin attached to it. Silverskin, if not pulled off the breast muscle, will absolutely interfere with binding. It’s like putting a piece of plastic film between two ends of velcro — you need to remove the film entirely for good binding, or poke a bunch of holes in the film to allow some of the velcro fibers to connect for a weak, but acceptable, bind. You end up with a bunch of squiggly lines of gelatin and collagen which then cook out into liquid and leave a hole behind when they’re cooked (and over cooked, at thay– collagen doesn’t break down until 180⁰F ish).
Could also be related to lack of vacuum at mixing or stuffing, but you would typically see perfectly rounded spheres of air trapped in the meat instead of these more irregular shaped holes.
Or over cooking. Or a combination of all of these factors.
Could *also maybe but probably not* be related to a condition called PSE meat, but you’d see other issues related to pH if that were the case.
Here’s what I imagine went down: Processor noticed that their oven roasted turkey breast slicing log was just shredding when they went to slice it, due to poor bind at mix or lack of vac at stuff or over cooking. They decided to pack them into these bulk pack trays and market them as heat and eat instead of routing to inedible or selling as #2 product (ends and pieces, pennies on the dollar, saves some cost but no profit to be made) so it’s a discounted product for immediate sale offload inventory. It’s designed for like a hot turkey sandwich where you’ll just want meat and will load it up with gravy, so you don’t necessarily need perfectly in-tact slices of turkey breast.
I was like this is TRIPE
Mmmmmmm braaaaaainz
Forget “Heat n Eat”! Gotta set this 💩 on 🔥 and repent for the purchase! $7 & some change is worth so much more than this….
Looks more like tripe.
I just puked and it had nothing to do with the 10L of beer I drank before seeing this post
This turkey died at least twice.
This looks like badly proofed dough. How in the world does that happen with turkey
Pull the trigger? Funny phrasing for “turkey” that appears to have been already killed several times over.
*pack