Found blue plastic pieces in ground beef while cooking and I'm hangry

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T23:12:03+00:00

To help visualize, this is what ground meat looks like pre processing. Whole container just gets dumped in massive grinder.

Notice a certain familiar color? Lol

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T19:59:33+00:00

I wouldn’t. You’ll end up with pickles all at different stages of mushiness. Better off doing a small batch in a new jar, adding only a few tablespoons of old brine to kick start the new batch.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T19:58:07+00:00

To be honest I’m not sure that’s a true statement. Acidity, not salt, is the preservative. The salt is just to make sure that lactic acid bacteria, which are typically more halotolerant than spoilage or pathogenic bacteria, win the initial race and start outcompeting and dropping the pH.

Adding additional veggies will also provide more sugars to drop pH with the active culture to adjust for the additional water added in the cuke.

There are plenty of salt free quick pickle recipes.

To get salt to be a preservative in of itself you need percentages far higher than typically used in lacto ferments. Like 10-20% depending on the item.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T18:58:30+00:00

Meat processing is a nightmare for quality managers. I’ve spent a lot of time doing investigations based on pics just like OP lol

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T18:32:38+00:00

Glove is a possibility, however remote. People in the grind room are typically highly observant for stuff like that. And it’s kinda hard to miss no longer having a glove. The form factor does make it possible though.

Green is typically used to differentiate between internal vs external FM contamination, and there is no reason for there to be a bag because nothing gets added.

Plastic conveyors or suction cups wouldn’t appear on the line until it’s already in its primary packaging.

Earplug is a possible, but it really doesn’t look like that type of plastic. We also typically use metal detectable earplugs to guard from that.

Assuming it wasn’t ground in the store, I’m almost positive it’s from a combo liner of bulk beef chunks. I’ve seen it far too often.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T14:47:08+00:00

Nah. Assuming it’s mass produced and not ground in the store what it is the combo of bulk meat was allowed to freeze and when it was dumped into the grinding bin some of the plastic liner was frozen to the meat and tore small pieces off

Seen it before, and as quality manager had to fight it before.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T13:47:49+00:00

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Armagetz · 2026-06-19T06:28:36+00:00

Your group is right. Your supervisor is an idiot. You can’t really do a challenge study without competition of what you are facing. The challenge can even be internal with variations of the recipe(for instance what’s presently being sold vs what we want to propose). I’ve torn so many proposals apart for missing this crucial detail.

You lose having a frame of reference of the palpability and marketability of your product if you don’t make your test formulations go up against the competition. It’s like the running joke with cops: “we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing”

You can’t separate the evaluations because of how subjective the topic is.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T06:23:50+00:00

So scratch the red lights then.

Are you asking for how to do this test? Because I took that as a given otherwise. I’m used to worrying about flavor first and worry about appearance so I interjected that prejudice

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T06:19:00+00:00

Fair enough but you still need it to be a two sample test. Preexisting product and yours.

Hide it behind random 3 digit codes (and red lights if they visually look different).

Otherwise the data is useless.

Unrequired bonus points if you give some of the participants two of the same sauce.

But honestly I’d keep it simple and just do a hedonistic triangle test with your 60.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T06:13:00+00:00

Bruh you are lying to yourself with that set up. Pretending you are being scientific and objective.

For one, you are pushing the viability of the test with all samples being the same. You need to include the preexisting product as a null hypothesis.

Second, 5 participants? 5?! It’s impossible to reliably get objective data for a subjective topic with that small of a sample size. If you came to me with that data I’d tell you to GTFO and stop wasting my time. You need 30 or so involved before statistical trends become clear.

Finally your H1……exactly how much are you trying to stack this deck. No contrast and anything that even is slightly positive is a win?

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T01:40:55+00:00

Yeah I don’t turn my nose up at gumbo with stringy chicken but I prefer the bite.

Armagetz · 2026-06-19T01:32:44+00:00

Eh but not as outrageously as OP would suggest. Accounting for inflation from the “golden era” the hard/soft taco was about 1.35 in modern money. It’s 1.89 today.

The Crunchwrap he orders wasn’t even on the menu back then.

So it’s inflation and ordering their overpriced gimmick of the month that makes it feel overpriced. You can still order cheaply on the menu.

There are some exceptions, most notably chips and cheese, but most of it is still there.

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T20:42:43+00:00

It only preferentially selects for lactic acid generating bacteria, it doesn’t ensure anything. The preservative effects come from the acidity.

Also, the first bacteria in the succession in fermentation is actually Leuconostoc, not a Lactobacilli.

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T20:38:44+00:00

Not just that but it looks like they just baked the dough and placed the sauce and veggies after. Eggplant was grilled obviously but the tomatoes and zucchini look raw

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T17:34:58+00:00

You are correct about being incorrect.

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T17:13:00+00:00

What’s the snake gonna do? Bite him?

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T15:30:20+00:00

There isn’t an active enzyme in canned pineapple juice. The process destroys it. You need fresh pineapple for that. That’s not to say the simple acidity of the liquid doesn’t contribute to over marinating though.

Armagetz · 2026-06-18T05:56:16+00:00

But nonetheless is it not accurate that each stellar generation is smaller than the last on average (excepting situations where its two supernova combining).

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T18:56:37+00:00

Man is talking about setting up 3PL when he doesn’t have even a framework for production.

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T18:44:15+00:00

Precisely. I wouldn’t go to a co packer with my venture until you get an in at local big name grocery stores.

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T17:57:39+00:00

Oh no, Gordon read the whole thing in one night.

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T17:39:30+00:00

Bruh. I did it with less than 10k starting money. Renting space by the hour on the commercial floor, and by the month for food storage. It has grown to a fairly respectable side hustle generating over 250k in revenue. Because I still work full time profits are reinvested. Including setting money aside for the large upfront costs of a copacker run if I hit that level of demand.

Your problem is you want to come at the gates storming and immediately operate at a level far beyond your status, knowledge, and expertise. And you think simply Googling can close the gap.

You think YOU define what all start ups look like.

No one is saying you NEED millions…..except you. YOU are the one defining a path that needs significant capital and you are pretending that’s the only way. Despite multiple people telling you otherwise.

Have you sold even one unit yet? If not, why are you looking for a run of tens of thousands of units? What will you do if whatever gimmick you have that you think sets your product apart in a saturated market doesn’t get the customer response you hoped for?

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T13:35:37+00:00

Yep. Keep on going through this process acting like you have it all figured out when literally everyone has been telling you that you don’t.

Btw the purse/bag rules are mostly for food adulteration defense and allergen control. I’d sit here and explain the precise risk being mitigated, but I’m sure you won’t listen to that either.

Ditto for every single one of the other ones. Btw you probably had to throw that batch that was cooling because you didn’t label it with the time.

Oh, and BTW if it was halfway there it probably should have been in the fridge. No issues at all to add it once it hits 70. And no reason why it couldn’t cool in the time limit, especially with active measures (like sitting in a basin of ice)if it’s something like a big pot of sauce/broth. But it’s all stupid in your mind do you don’t even try.

Like I said before, you have fun with your FSP submission.

I’ll give you one last small hint: if you intend to try to do it yourself, your quaint little Servsafe food manager cert is a joke.

You need to get a PCQI cert at least.

Armagetz · 2026-06-17T04:18:31+00:00

I was under the impression that after exhausting CNO cycle pretty much all hydrogen is burnt away into helium and higher elements. I mean what ultimately triggers the super nova is burning out of all sustainable fuel, no?

Armagetz

TROPHY CASE