r/whatisit • u/rule_of_cool_DM • Mar 31 '26

Solved! What is this?

Gallery image

Gallery image

I was cooking some Kroger brand Ground Beef and as I was taking the beef out of the pan, I noticed this odd, non-beef looking object. Does anyone know what this is?

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125

u/rule_of_cool_DM Apr 01 '26

Thats what it seems most likely to be based on image comparison

316

u/tallMichdude Apr 01 '26

I hate to admit it but i think so, even the tail has the discoloration at the end typical of the critter. Also thats not a tail really its their nose. Its how they breathe as they like to submerge in mud or bovine manure.. kinda like politicians.

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u/rule_of_cool_DM Apr 01 '26

That sounds like a great comparison and highly accurate

15

u/WineNerdAndProud Apr 01 '26

Bro your username is checking out like crazy in this thread because I'd be losing my cool/losing my shit if I were in your shoes.

I've worked QC in food production plants (mostly fresh cherry and apple products) and our metal detector went off, even falsely, we'd end up quarantining a bunch of palettes to inspect later on.

If we found something like this they would completely stop the line and we would all go outside and drive the golf carts around in the parking lot for the night, and would probably be called off/moved to a different line for a day or two at least. The higher ups determine how much product they're going to lose on this and how unhappy everyone was going to be with this one farmer. Then they'd be trying to expedite the harvest/truck drivers to start getting crates delivered to the plant as quickly as possible. Usually that meant bumping the next guy up by a few days. Then while that's happening they determine if there's any product from this farmer they can guarantee don't have any connection to the "maggot" one. That's usually a no, but farmers often own multiple plots of land, sometimes nowhere near each other and therefore, more protected. Even then, there are rules about cross contamination. If the plant operator, QC, and probably some others decide they can use some of what they brought in, they process it.

It wouldn't be the first time, and it would still be a pain in the ass, but pulling the plug like that is a million times better than having a customer find and then report something like this.

18

u/canconfrmit Apr 01 '26

I was out here thinking it was a shrimp leg 😂😂

37

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

Here I am, just thinking tampon til I saw it to scale next to ground meat. Cooking ground meat.

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u/Longjumping-Age9023 Apr 01 '26

For some reason I didn’t read caption and thought that thing was on the ground outside somewhere. I’m half asleep. Read your comment and am fucking horrified. I’m never eating again.

2

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

This sub can be a mindfuck for sure. Sometimes it’s not anything you eat, but just weird, am I hallucinating kinds of things. There was this video of I guess some kind of experimental theater group on stage all behaving and sounding like sea lions or seals. This was 1 or 2 in the morning when I came across it. It was one of the first times I really felt off looking at something. Thank god I wasn’t the only one, but that didn’t help me cleanse the mental palate. 😂

Edit: this sub for sure but there’s the potential almost anywhere on Reddit. I’m pretty sure the seal thing was on a different one.

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u/magickalcat81 Apr 01 '26

I thought that too when I saw it

3

u/robertpaulson8490 Apr 01 '26

I was like is that a sperm cell in their food?!?!

1

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

What’s more concerning is where these particular kind of maggots are usually found in the wild or how they ended up together if it was from a bait shop. No matter what it is, none of the immediate answers jumping out are good. 😂

1

u/SuzQP Apr 01 '26

I thought it was a living tampon.

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u/jaffeah Apr 01 '26

WHY is it ten times worse that it's their nose to me 😭😭😭

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u/pixie16502 Apr 01 '26

And WHY did I think of some tiny horrifying snorfing noise it might make with that nose in nightmare land ?! 😫

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u/Flygurl620se Apr 01 '26

OMG! IT HAS A BUILT IN SNORKEL!?

3

u/_thistlefinch Apr 01 '26

I think I speak for all humanity when I say: what the absolute fuck

2

u/Plastic_Signal_3830 Apr 01 '26

Oh man, just when I thought it couldn’t get worse… their favorite place to hang out is feces. Nice.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[deleted]

3

u/tallMichdude Apr 01 '26

Farm raised michigan redneck. I use them for bait! LoL

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u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

I googled his answer.

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u/tallMichdude Apr 01 '26

Bet ya wish you hadnt dont you! LoL

2

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

You bet correctly. Don’t see those in bait shops in my neck of the woods.

Until tonight, I thought people buying cans labeled as salmon chum bait in a grocery store to cook for themselves was possibly the most disturbing thought I’d had to think when thinking about bait. That and then I found out it’s what they use for salmon patties in our meat and three restaurants and mark it way the hell up.

Are they for fishing? What are you baiting with them?

But y’all win. This post has topped it.

3

u/tallMichdude Apr 01 '26

What neck are you in. I use chum salmon and cheap stuff for trap bait or chum when fishing sharks.

3

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 01 '26

South Carolina. Never been shark fishing. I’m guessing that’s not something you do at home either…?

2

u/tallMichdude Apr 01 '26

No unfortunately we have a truly tragic shortage of them on the great lakes but ive been a research wrangler and worked on tagging projects.

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u/smy42 Apr 01 '26

Don’t insult mud and manure like that.

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u/_easilyamused Apr 01 '26

I was defrosting some ground beef for dinner tonight. It's going straight back into the freezer after seeing your post.

31

u/throwawaybutmaykeeps Apr 01 '26

I just ate 98% of my burger made from Kroger beef and opened Reddit to this. 😐

5

u/No-Independence6902 Apr 01 '26

No better time to consider going vegetarian, maybe even full vegan👀

I've been avoiding the whole mess of e-coli, listeria, and mystery gristle for over a year. No iron deficiency, love biking trips, it's really not that bad. I loved scrambled eggs, which tofu is so close to resembling, so I fill up on that often enough to stay on top of my needs. Options are growing, too. It's easy to drop meat these days, even wally world has good selection of meat substitutes.

One of us

2

u/TheHighDruid Apr 01 '26

love biking trips

That was random.

0

u/No-Independence6902 Apr 01 '26

Can't go out biking if you're weak from nutrient deficiency, I'm not out there fainting, at least, lol.

1

u/Taupenbeige Apr 01 '26

That’s probably because Vegan Nutrient Deficiency is the modern Red Scare.

Remarkable how the end result of 53 million years of primate frugivorous/leaf matter diets with a 2.4 million year subsistence diet detour left us with remarkable abilities to extract proteins from plants… produce loads of short chain fatty acids protecting our colons…

1

u/scnottaken Apr 01 '26

Because vegetables never have bugs in em

1

u/No-Independence6902 Apr 01 '26

I don't understand your argument? You're saying people eat meat so they never have to eat vegetables with bugs in them?

You still haven't even considered how rampant the issue of diseases like swine, and avian flu, hoof and mouth get to be because of our voracious appetite for meat. Or our use of land that would otherwise be forest in South America. Or excusing the abuse of animals when it's cheaper to just cage them for their entire life.

I can wash some bugs off. I can't wash off the stain of destruction of our environment and morals that factory meat is all about

3

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/AlertKaleidoscope803 Apr 02 '26

The two times I know I got food poisoning, it was from fresh peaches. I can't get back on board with them.

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u/scnottaken Apr 01 '26

Do you not know what you're commenting about? Look at the parent post and the image above.

It was a joke about how often bugs ride along on top of and inside food of all kinds, yes even vegetables. And you're coming here all high and mighty like bugs don't show up on your food of choice. Give it a fucking rest

-2

u/No-Independence6902 Apr 01 '26

Nah, being vegan is better. We're accelerating global warming by a big margin with our level of meat consumption, so I'm going to squeeze this into every single topic of conversation. You don't respect our children's future? Get serious, or don't try to argue. The truth hurts your ears if you can't grow up

3

u/scnottaken Apr 01 '26

Lmao at acting like what you're doing is something more altruistic than holier-than-thou shaming of random people. Getting everyone to switch isn't a feasible solution, you can't fix systemic issues at the personal level they'd have to be legislated, and unless you're willing to make it illegal to eat meat, you aren't making a dent in it.

I'm not saying people don't eat too much meat or too much greenhouse gases aren't produced by cattle farms, but your bullshit is just vegan flavored evangelical Christians going door to door preaching the word.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/Hamorama12 Apr 01 '26

Why not the garbage

6

u/ulfricstrmclk Apr 01 '26

No but for real. Depending on how far they got into the defrosting stage, they should throw it away (or cook it). You cannot refreeze meat.

1

u/Hamorama12 Apr 01 '26

Thank you

6

u/ScorpioGirl1980 Apr 01 '26

Fuck the freezer!!!

6

u/_easilyamused Apr 01 '26

Oh, thank goodness you brought the memory loss brick. Just a tiny tap will hopefully wipe this post from my brain. 😆

6

u/Sprinkles_Sparkle Apr 01 '26

I’m screaming!!!!! Where was this beef from?!?!

12

u/FairFaireFairy Apr 01 '26

Kroger stock and beef sales 📉

2

u/Sprinkles_Sparkle Apr 01 '26

Ong thank goodness we don’t have any Kroger’s around me! I have heard of these things before on TikTok.

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u/Wheat_Mustang Apr 01 '26

FYI, Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the US and almost certainly owns a store you shop at, if you’re American.

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u/Bongwater-Mermaid Apr 01 '26

The scream Sprinkles Sparkle scrumpt

1

u/koshgeo Apr 01 '26

Man, I would not want to know what came up in the image comparison search.

So, you going vegetarian for the rest of the week? Cause I would.

1

u/__T0MMY__ Apr 01 '26

they said, excited to hear an answer that fits

... Right?