Beware of Wal~Mart’s Meat
My wife, Debbie, bought food at Wal~Mart earlier this week. She’s not a Wal~Mart person, but she had a doctor’s appointment right across the street from Wal~Mart and saw that the parking lot wasn’t crowded. She wasn’t in a hurry to get home (I was working), so she decided to take a stroll through the store, where she was seduced by meat prices far below what she was used to paying at Publix. But when we tried to eat the Wal~Mart meat, it was obvious that Debbie had made a big mistake.
The first taste was mine, of the precooked deli roast beef she got me for lunches or casual sandwiches. It not only wasn’t rare, as is my preference and as the package was marked, but it was so salty that I couldn’t eat it. I’m talking seriously salty, to the point of mouth-puckering. Yuk!
The roast turkey she got for herself was just as bad. And Debbie likes salt a lot more than I do, so when she says something is too salty, it is too salty for just about any living human being.
She also got some ham. After the roast beef and turkey experiences, we didn’t even bother to try it.
Luckily, she only got 1/4 pound of each deli meat selection, so she didn’t waste too much money learning that Wal~Mart deli meats are inedible.
Is Wal~Mart’s Perdue chicken the same as normal Purdue chicken?
One thing we already knew about Wal~Mart is that just because an item in that store carries a major brand name item doesn’t mean it’s the same product sold elsewhere with the same label on it. I’d already learned that by buying a Shop-Vac from Wal~Mart that turned out to be less powerful and less durable than similar-looking Shop Vacs sold elsewhere. (I have since replaced the crappy Wal-Mart pseudo-Shop-Vac with a real one that lives up to its name.)
But Perdue chicken? Debbie is a Maryland woman, descended from a long line of chicken-frying Eastern Shore women. Debbie makes fried chicken (and baked, roasted, and rotisseried chicken) so much better than what you get in even the finest restaurants that… well…. her chicken-cooking skills, alone, would have been reason enough for me to marry her. And friends and acquaintances she honors with her chicken never forget it. Years later, from across the country, they call and email to say they lust for the day they can visit us again and taste Debbie’s chicken.
One thing a chicken-cooking Maryland woman knows is that Perdue is the best chicken. It has a distinctive flavor and is tenderer and meatier than other chicken in the store. It costs a little extra but it’s well worth the premium, and not just because she grew up with scrawny old Frank Perdue snarling, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” at her from the TV a dozen times a week. Nope. Perdue chicken has been the best Maryland chicken you could get in a store since the Kosher butchers on Lombard Street near downtown Baltimore stopped killing them fresh for you while you watched.
Debbie rotisseried up a small stack of Wal~Mart’s Perdue-branded chicken wings. As they cooked, she said in puzzlement, “They aren’t browning right. Something is wrong here.” They didn’t taste right, either. They were flavorless compared to the Perdue chicken we remember getting in Maryland. These weren’t rotten-tasting chicken wings or anything like that, just pallid and boring.
We still have a whole Wal~Mart “Perdue” chicken in the refrigerator. Debbie is thinking that maybe she’ll cook it, debone it, and feed it to the dog.
As for buying more meat at Wal~Mart, I don’t think so. Once was enough!
May 8th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
You are not alone in your observation. - The frozen “stuff” seems not to suffer from the same quality issues. Maybe it’s the supply and shipping model they follow? Although they are not offering outdated products, maybe the trip through AK takes its toll on fresh meats?
May 13th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I hope you’ve learned your lesson! I once concluded that anything sold at Walmart probably fell off the production line of stuff going to quality stores. I’ve never purchased anything electrical there that wasn’t crap. Between throwing stuff away and returning it, your purchases are much more cheaply made elsewhere.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I recently purchased meat from wal-mart simular to what happened to your wife. I purchesd a roat, 2 steaks and some deli meats. We too couldn’t eat the deli meat and we cooked the roast when it was done it had the strangest texture and looked “NOT RIGH” it tasted off just thought it was that 1 piece of meat well we had the steaks this evning and they were cooked on the grill, they had the same strange texture and looks as the roast. My steak was so salty i couln’t eat it and my husbans was just terriblewe couldn’t eat them…i found some articals about them soaking their meat in salt??? I will never buy meat from wal-mart again.
June 30th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I am a kidney transplant patient, and have some dietary requirements to remain healthy. Virtually ALL the meat sold at WalMart is soaked in a 10 to 14% brine solution, making the salt content extremely high. Not only that, the texture of the meat is altered to a shiney, very wet appearance and texture. When cooked, it does remain tender, but the texture is very soft and the flavor altered considerably, and obviously remains very salty.
Anyone who has a salt restricted diet should be very aware of the high salt content of WalMart meats. I have complained about their meats from local stores to AK headquarters, and everyone says they will stock meats unaltered with this “tenderization” salt solution, but they never do. Check the nutritional labels for yourself.
And you pay the same price as the meat per pound for the 10-14% water/salt solution injected into it, so you are paying a high price for water and salt!
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 am
Unfortunately Wal-mart is the only store located anywhere near where I live (they have put everyone else out of business). I absolutely refuse to buy any more Wal-mart meat. It is the worse stuff I’ve ever eaten. I recently tried to return some rotten chicken & because I did not save my receipt, I was told that they could not give me a refund or replace it. I had all the packaging which showed the date & price. I made such a scene I was afraid they were going to call the police. They eventually gave in and gave me my money back just to shut me up. I am seriously considering becoming a vegetarian & growing my own produce.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I too made the mistake of buying meat at wal-mart. Delmonico steaks @ 7.59 a pound, I should have known something was amiss. The meat was a bright red and looked nice but as soon as i seared it on the grill things changed. It was rubbery and gray and tasted, well we haven’t quite found a word that describes the taste. I placed the steaks back in the original container and with receipt in hand; I hauled the still warm steaks back to the store. I was that upset. They did apologize and refunded my money. Wal-mart; the store you love-to-hate or hate-to-love, whichever the case may be.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:34 am
My husband and I used to take our kids to Wal-Mart to get chicken tenders from the deli. One day after getting in the car and doing our usual “mmmmmmmmmmm” to the smell of chicken filling the car, we each took out a piece and bit down. I know have a brand new filling and my husband needed a crown. Our kids loved it though, they both had loose teeth and the tooth fairy was very generous to them for having to loose teeth that weren’t loose yet. Thank you Wal-Mart for your brilliance with not only cornering the market and putting out many businesses to your greed, but now you have a partnership with the dental community. BRAVO You kids sure have made your father proud, I can just hear ole Sam Walton rolling in his money over and over right now……….ah
July 12th, 2007 at 2:36 am
excuse me, now have a brand new filling, see my bad teeth are making my spelling wrong too! Damn you Wally World!
December 25th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
WHEN I MAKE STEW I BUY THE SUPER TRIM. I BOUGHT A PACKAGE AT WALMART TWO WEEKS GO AND IT HAD SUCH A WEIRD TASTE WE COULD NOT EAT IT - - I BOUGHT MY CHRISTMAS TURKEY AT WALMART ALSO AND IT WAS SO LOADED WITH SALT THAT I PERSONALLY DID NOT EAT ANY. MY THANKSGIVING TURKEY WAS ENTIRELY TOO SALTY T EAT AS WELL, HOWEVER; WE DID NOT BUY IT AT WALMART AND IT WAS A BUTTERBALL. I AM NOW WONDERING WHERE YOU CAN BUY TURKEYS AND CHICKENS THAT ARE NOT LOADED WITH SALT. ANY ADVISE?
January 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I have been a Walmart fan for quite a few years, however I am rethinking that position. Their meat ISN’T RIGHT. You can’t get a steak to cook with a pink center… Its rubbery… Often reminds me of the smell of pork poop… Their pork is worse… I have always bought the 73/37 ground beef. I’m noticing that as you fry it the fat doesn’t run out readily until it is burned hard. SOMETHING is wrong… Chicken wings don’t brown properly, even in used oil. No flavor, other than a subtle wet-feather aroma… I sampled a portion of beef produced by my brother-in-law who has gotten into small scale beef production since his “retirement”. It was incredible - it tastes beefy, it cooks right, no nothing fed to the animals to boost production, cut and packaged by a USDA facility (not the local deer processor), and delivered frozen hard in his refrigerated box truck in various quanities for $4/lb… I just talked myself into ordering some today… WallyWorld can keep their contaminated @#$%^&*!
June 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
The new fancy black wrappers and trays do not disguise the nasty phospates which are STILL in the walmart meat. YUK…….. personally I refuse to eat soap, although when i was a kid a few times I did take a bar in the mouth for not minding my parents. Even the tyson wings in the deli now are fatty and gross, I wont buy any more of them, although I did love them at one time, even though its a bit more trouble, and more expensive, I shall go other places than walmart which is less than one mile from my door…….. shame on walmart for trying to wash my insides without my permission……….. YUK YUK YUK…. READ the lable and you will see phosphate in more than one area on the meat…………… not for me or my family.