An underground Facebook market for rare meat | Hacker News Reader

An underground Facebook market for rare meat

melmagazine.com

63 pointsempath7528 comments

They are almost certainly talking about "Meat Street"

I've been a member in the beer ones for years. Happy to answer any questions.

What are the best beer ones?

This whole article is nonsensical to the point I think this is some sort of guerrilla marketing, but may be you can answer these:

1. Is there anyway to verify authenticity of the goods? Why anyone would trust this?

2. Many items you can buy without complexity of raffle and at lower price. So why even bother?

3. How does raffle makes it legal from non-legal from Facebook perspective?

The secondary market for whiskey is quite real. The article is remarkably accurate on that accord, so it is very easy to believe the meat market is similar.

With regard to booze: there is no way to truly verify or authenticate until you drink it against a known good bottle. For pricey bottles, most groups require detailed pictures of the laser code as well as the top foil measured against a ruler. Ultimately the only security is the attestation of references from previous transactions, but many of the large groups have been banned recently, which has been a huge hit to references.

E.g. The MSRP of Pappy Van Winkle 15yr is $99. It goes for $999 on the secondary market (as well as in 95% of liquor stores in CA). Many of the raffle pages offered a shot at these bottles for like $100 x 10 slots, etc.

AFAIK, it's only illegal to sell or ship booze. And again, AFAIK, it is not illegal to buy it second hand for personal consumption.

>AFAIK, it's only illegal to sell or ship booze. And again, AFAIK, it is not illegal to buy it second hand for personal consumption.

That's going to vary by state and country.

"A sucker is born every minute" - Nixon, during his famous '72 China visit.

Leaving aside idiocy of buying meat from random, probably untraceable sources, I'm more interested in the logistics part of this.Assuming a good % of buyers are Americans,how an Octopus from Spain or a Unicorn from Sunnyland get delivered via customs? As far as I know, US can be very very picky about importing some random food... Anyone could elaborate on this?

>I'm more interested in the logistics part of this.Assuming a good % of buyers are Americans,how an Octopus from Spain or a Unicorn from Sunnyland get delivered via customs? As far as I know, US can be very very picky about importing some random food... Anyone could elaborate on this?

I clear international freight through customs for a living, a good deal of importing small amounts of stuff is on the honor system. Sure, customs will randomly search shipments but I can think of many ways I could increase the likelihood of an individual getting something past customs. I will share them all, or even elaborate in any real detail but these tare all data points that could be considered:

- description

- value

- country of origin

- Declaring it as a REDACTED and/or as REDACTED

- Sending it as REDACTED

Then there are methods of packaging that can also increase chances of avoiding detection.

Look, people ship illegal drugs internationally daily via darknet market purchases (I mean, open your DNM of choice and you can have a kilogram of cocaine shipped to your door domestically and internationally, clearly it's not all getting seized otherwise the listings would dry up as customers got burned), you also have gobs and gobs of counterfeit goods, goods from sanctioned/embargoed countries, etc all slipping by Customs (at least in the United States). A lot of it is purely due to the fact that, unless the inspect a package, it's an honor system "I claim this is what is in this box I'm sending to Bob in America" combined with the sheer volume of packages.

I mean, on average PER DAY in fiscal year 2018, Customs processed 95,890 entries [1] of merchandise at air, land, and sea ports of entry. Most of that, never gets reviewed by a human being on the end of Customs as a lot of it is electronically transmitted via ABI and if any number of computer decisions don't flag it, it clears within seconds.

[1] https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/typical-day-fy2018

I would love to be able to buy more game meats.

While I can buy farmed venison, it's always red deer, and I vastly prefer fallow, far more tender and far less gamey.

But as I lack the time go hunting these days, farmed red is really my only option.

An Iberian octopus is an impossible-to-score good? As someone who lives in Spain I disagree.

Right now, Spain is importing over twice as much octopus as it's exporting. Actual Iberian octopus prices have gone up over a 400%, while most of the locally consumed (cheaper) stuff comes from Marocco and Mauritania.

Perhaps we should convince their group that berberechos are a new discovery?...haha. I'm in Kathmandu and today at my local market chain (Big Mart) I found frozen ostrich meat - an interesting surprise.

Except, as they admit, it's not rare meat?

Just a gambling group.

I suspect it's a pun on "rare" in the sense of "uncooked".

>“It’s one thing to buy a spot for a razzle where the winner gets a shipment from Snake River Farms,” he explains. “But when someone is shipping something they made at home, I consider it borderline absurd, primarily due to the sanitation and safety concerns.”

I eat almost nothing other than food made at home. I guess the government must be very concerned about what that could do to my safety.

And on the other hand, we have this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUb7xKBM9G8

I have spoke to chefs who say they re-use chicken that was dropped on the floor, no problem.

Somehow the government doesn’t prevent this:

https://www.epicurious.com/archive/blogs/editor/2010/09/chef...

Someone spitting on pizza is just a psychological issue as pizza is baked on very high temperature for long enough, so it will be effectively sterilized... same with the meat dropped on the floor, as long as it's prepared right after that so that bacteria couldn't multiply and penetrate deeper.

It’s more than possible for non-living but still harmful substances/chemicals to be on the floor.

in substantial amounts and then not vaporize while cooking? I guess it's possible, but honestly I'd worry much more about the hygiene of meat processing plants and what happens to meat during the storage and transport

It is often the toxins from bacteria, rather than the bacteria itself that makes you sick. Don't play when it comes to meat.

We're discussing very specific scenario where there's no time for bacteria to produce a significant amount of toxins in those few minutes from falling on the floor to being prepared, and also the majority (although not all) of deadly meat bacteria toxins like botox are inactivated by cooking. Anyway, it's not that I like eating food from a floor or having someone spit in my dishes, I just argue that strictly sanitary these are not as big deal as they're psychologically.

You discount viruses that may be transmitted by saliva.

you discount that so many people don't wash their hands after using toilet, and they cook your food later... especially in fast food restaurants... and yet we survive...

>pizza is baked on very high temperature for long enough, so it will be effectively sterilized

The toppings don't get anywhere near the temperature of the oven. If they did they'd be horribly overcooked and taste dry and awful

This is apt for this discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-second_rule

>I have spoke to chefs who say they re-use chicken that was dropped on the floor, no problem.

I also eat pizza slice which falls off my hand on the floor in my home. I've dropped food on floor many times, I just don't like to see food being wasted, I am not poor or anything.

Infact, I am one of those people who rarely fall ill. Last year I had cold 1 time that lasted 2 days. Then there was a viral fever in my location and people were sick for 7-10 days and needed corse of antibiotics to clear as I got to know from my local doctor buddy.

I caught the same viral from some Amazon delivery guy but refused to take meds and it auto healed it just 2 days!

When I am about to fall sick, my appetite shots up and I feel very hungry then these small things always go away quick.

This comment originated from an untrusted source.

There's a world of difference between eating something that you've cooked, to a quality standard you know, in verifiably sanitary conditions, with limited exposure to bacteria, within a relatively short timespan after cooking, and eating food shipped across the country from an unknown, functionally-anonymous, and unaccountable source.

While people are certainly welcome to spin that wheel, it's disingenuous to equate the risks with home cooking.

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