Woman Goes To Popular Iowa Grocery Store. Then She Sees It Selling ‘Unknown Meat’: ‘Call The Health Department’

Figuring out what’s for dinner is the worst. Wandering the aisles of the grocery store, hoping that inspiration strikes, is somehow the most tedious daily chore. Sometimes, something close to inspiration strikes. But for one woman in Des Moines, Iowa, dinner became a mystery meat she wanted to solve.

When TyleahTrotter940 (@tyleahtrotter940) picked up just over a pound of “unknown” meat at Hy-Vee, she took her valid concerns to TikTok.

Ultimate Ingredient House?

Trotter’s video, which has been viewed over 5 million times, asks a legit question: “What is that?”

At the beginning of her video, the camera is close-up on a typical shrink-wrapped piece of meat. The skin is dark, the flesh is pink, and it looks like Trotter might be near the seafood counter. So presumably what’s for sale at $10.99 a pound is some sort of whole fish.

However, as she turns the package, and the description becomes clear, the situation only gets murkier. Where the type of animal should be listed, the label says: “Unknown – New Scale Item.” Her reaction? To pan out, revealing something that looks suspiciously like a claw still attached to something covered in dark scales.

So not only is the type of food unclear, it seems like there’s more processing that needs to happen before it’s edible. That truly gives a new perspective to the idea of an “ingredients house.”

Trotter ends the video with some advice for the entire country, saying, “Y’all be careful in America.”

Hy-Vee, the grocery store selling this, conformed to BroBible that the item was alligator. A spokesperson said, “We are aware that alligator being sold at one store was not labeled appropriately, and we have addressed the situation.”

Jokes Are Crawling In

Viewers had a lot of jokes.

“They serving Godzilla,” @okaybrb quipped.

@1flawless_makeup imagined management’s thought process, writing, “Manager said, ‘Put it on sale, they’ll throw butter and Old Bay on it.”

But @sam83697 isn’t having any fun with what some are calling a dragon foot. “Call the f—— health department,” she wrote.

What Are The Rules Around Food Labeling?

Eating alligator might feel taboo because until 1987, the species was on the endangered list. Now though, the reptile—which the Catholic church classifies as fish, so it can be eaten on Fridays during lent—is grown on farms and hunted for sport. And, as long as it’s properly packaged, labeled, and stored, it is legal to sell.

The obvious next question is, why the feet? Though not a common dish, alligator is edible. The most popular cuts come from the animal’s tail, jaw, and ribs. With one food writer describing the mild flavor as having “a bit of tooth and swampness about it.” That same writer suggests soaking alligator in milk prior to cooking to help mitigate any swamp essence lingering in the flesh.

But the feet of many animals are overlooked in modern, metropolitan cooking. After all, feet aren’t immediately associated with cleanliness or even tenderness. Yet in more “traditional” cultures, the entirety of an animal is consumed. This might initially be understood in terms of chicken and cows, but it’s logical that it might extend to reptiles for human consumption too.

So apparently, an Iowa grocery store thinks its customers are hungry for reptile feet. A win for the nose-to-tail crowd for sure: a safari for the rest of us.

BroBible reached out to Trotter via TikTok direct message and with a comment on the post.