Walmart shopper says her ground beef looked ‘like brains’ and nearly half of its weight disappeared into grease

A Walmart shopper posted a video walking through a package of ground beef she says looked off from the moment she opened it. She bought an 80% lean, 20% fat ground beef chuck roll from Walmart and filmed herself examining it, forming patties, and cooking part of it to see how the meat held up. 

In the TikTok video, Bishop opens by addressing Walmart directly. “Walmart. What is this? This is supposed to be ground beef. Why is it white? And why does it look like brains?” she says, holding up a container of the raw meat. 

She calls it “literal garbage” and says she bought it “in the tube,” referring to the vacuum-sealed chub packaging used for some ground beef. A product listing shown briefly in the video identifies the item as a 3-pound roll priced at $18.83 at the time of the screenshot.

Then she puts the beef to the test

She says she had already cooked half the tube before filming and was cooking the remainder on camera. “This will turn into nothing but straight up grease with a little bit of meat,” she says, adding that she believes the ratio is “80, 20 be for real” and that this is “why I do not f with Walmart meats.” Her complaint comes as other shoppers question what they’re getting for the price at Walmart, including customers who’ve run their own scale checks against the weight listed on the label.

She then forms several oversized patties. “I made these patties huge because I just know that they’re gonna cook down a whole lot,” she says. “It’s probably gonna shrink by like 50%.” 

Ground beef does shrink during cooking, with the amount varying based on factors including fat and moisture content, cooking temperature and cooking time, according to the USDA. USDA research has also found that higher-fat ground beef can have a lower cooking yield.

 After frying the patties, she compares them with their earlier size and points to the pan, saying the burger “literally almost dropped 50% of weight just in grease.”

Some commenters agreed with her, while others questioned the complaint. One commenter wrote, “I don’t buy meat from Walmart especially in a tube.” Another disagreed, writing, “maybe it’s bc you’re buying the cheapest option for beef lol.” A third commenter claimed, “There has been bone fragments found in that tubes of ground meat. Don’t buy the tube ground meat.”

The question of how much meat shoppers actually get has also come up in other Walmart videos, including one in which a shopper uses a scale to check a package of Great Value bacon against its listed weight.