Odd Sighting at a Stop and Shop

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I just had an odd experience, and I wanted to share. Am I being paranoid? Making something of nothing?

I told the family I’d make burgers on the grill tonight. This is a treat for us since we’ve really curtailed our red meat consumption.

I went to Stop & Shop to get the ground beef, and all the 85/15 looked kind of gray and unappetizing. As I pawed through the packages looking for a “good” one, assuming they were probably fine but a little older, I noticed all the store-applied labels were torn in such a way that I couldn’t read the use-by date. The other ratios (ie, 90/10) not only looked better, but did not have the torn labels.

I mean, a national chain like that wouldn’t do something so brazen and stupid, would they?

2

The management of the national chain? Almost certainly not.

The manager of that one store? Maybe.

Some lazy worker who was told to throw away the past-dated stuff and decided it’d be easier & quicker to just tear the labels and tell the boss “There isn’t any old stuff; can I go outside and toke up some more?”? Sure.

3

Yep. Not the chain for sure.

4

Call corporate with the store number(on your receipt).

That should not be done.

Someone made a boo-boo.
It needs to be determined.

The meat is probably ok to eat. Mislabeled date is not ok.

ETA…there’s a process to sell reduced price meat. But the correct date should still be on there and the price reduced dramatically.

5

Can’t speak to the use-by date issue, but I’ll point out that color isn’t a great indicator of freshness in beef. Beef is frequently treated with carbon monoxide, which keeps it red even after it’s potentially gone bad. On the other hand, slightly gray looking meat may be perfectly fine.

The FDA justifies the use of CO in meat packaging (in part) due to the lack of a strong relationship between color and safety in the first place. I.e., it’s ok to pump up the redness of beef because being red never meant the meat was safe in the first place (you’re expected to use other factors, like odor).

6

True. It is the smell which is the dead giveaway.

7

I am aware of this. But I just didn’t like the cut of the beef’s jib. I found the color odd.

And the label thing really concerned me, so I went to a real butcher shop instead.

8

Pun intended?

9

In that situation I like to buy some nice steaks and grind the meat after trimming off any fat (we both prefer very lean meat).

Then I sous vide to rare, then torch sear the burgers. Big, juicy, rare burgers!

10

As it should.

11

Wasn’t Food Lion busted for this in the early '90s?