Texas man buys H-E-B pork shoulder. He notices something off inside the meat:’ is this normal?‘

“Mystery meat” is not a phrase many people want to think of when grocery shopping, but sometimes consumers accidentally purchase strange or unusual cuts.

One man is going viral for buying what he thought was run-of-the-mill raw pork steak from H-E-B. Then he opened the packaging and found something strange inside.

What was wrong with the meat?

H-E-B customer Nelson Acevedo (@nelson.el.potro) shared footage capturing his recent purchase of an H-E-B bone-in Boston butt pork steak. The video has since accumulated more than 150,000 views.

“Okay, can somebody please tell me if this is normal?” Acevedo asked. He moved his camera to point it at a wooden cutting board covered in chopped-up bits of raw steak. Then he said, “So I noticed that little piece right there, had like this little looking… like a pimple, thing.”

Acevedo showed his viewers a white lump on one of the pieces of steak.

“So I was curious, and I punch a hole in it, and squeeze,” Acevedo said, pressing down on the steak piece. “Look at this.”

As Acevedo pressed down on the meat, the hole he'd poked in it oozed a thick, white discharge.

“That is—ew,” Acevedo said. “Yeah, that is [expletive] disgusting.”

In an email to Buzz News, Acevedo expanded on his consumer experience and said H-E-B gave him a refund for the pork steak.

“While preparing the meat, I noticed an unusual cyst-like structure in one of the pieces,” Acevedo said. “When I punctured it, a thick substance came out. I posted the video because I had never seen anything like it before and wanted to know whether anyone else had experienced something similar. HEB was very helpful and refunded the purchase.”

Acevedo also noted in his caption that while H-E-B also gave him a new “entire pack of meat,” it's still important to always check the quality of the meat purchased.

“Please, check the meat before you cook and make sure there's nothing on it,” he wrote.

@nelson.el.potro

This happened today. I was preparing the meat to make “Paisa Rice” and noticed a cyst looking thing on one of the small pieces I already chopped. A made a small puncture with the knife and puss popped out of it. That's when I decided to record and squeezed it to see how much it was in it and as you can see, there was a lot. I contacted the store and they were very helpful and received the entire pack of meat and gave me a refund. With that being said, please, check the meat before you cook and make sure there's nothing on it.

♬ original sound – Nelson (El Potro)

How to identify a steak abscess—and whether that steak is good to eat

Acevedo's experience is by no means singular. Reddit is filled with posts written by concerned would-be consumers of suspiciously oozing steaks. As it turns out, most meat products can get abscesses, which can make them unsafe to eat.

According to a Food Republic interview with veterinary doctor Crystal Heath, these abscesses “are symptoms of improper cattle processing” and are “a common injury cattle face.”

“An abscess is a pocket of infection — a walled-off mass of pus made up of dead tissue, bacteria, and immune cells,” Heath says. “Federal inspectors are trained to identify and remove these lesions.”

However, some infected cuts of meat fall through regulatory cracks. Food Republic advises throwing out such cuts of meat “immediately.” If a person consumes the meat, they may experience “nausea, fever, stomach pain, and other signs of gastrointestinal distress.”

Yahoo News explains that cattle abscesses “are often caused by ‘high-energy cereal diets' and unsanitary conditions,” and that even one abscess can infect the entire slab of meat with bacteria.

“An abscess is a lump in the tissue that feels firm and fibrous,” Yahoo News says. “It may be filled with white, yellow, or green pus when you cut into it … Infected portions should not be fed to pets, either … If an abscess is cut open and pus leaks out, not only does the meat need to be completely discarded, but you also need to sanitize your cutting board, knives, and any surfaces that came in contact with that infection using a bleach solution.”

Buzz News has reached out to Acevedo via TikTok comment and H-E-B via email.