Stay away from this Smartprice product (Asda Smartprice Mince)

Member Name: sun-is-shining

Product:	Asda Smartprice Mince
Date:	03/11/09 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: worst mince I've ever tried

This must surely be the worst Smartprice product I've ever tried; if I'd be ASDA I would consider putting a bio-hazard warning on the front of the pack. The Tesco Value minced meat tasted OK so I thought this here should not be to different; but I was in for a bad surprise and all my flatmates agreed that the Smartprice mince belongs on the list "things we're never ever going to buy again"

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The mince is mixed beef and pork and consists to a high percentage of fat and water.

The meat already looks bad in the pack, like little pink worms and not like "normal" mince at all. When defrosted the pink colour gets even more intense and looks incredibly artificial - definitely not like something that you would like to eat.

But well, I bought it so I thought I would give it a try and (tried to) cook some Bolognese sauce.
The first thing that became clear was that the meat had a very high fat percentage and was soon swimming in its own fat; even scooping it out with a spoon didn't do much good.
As soon as the meat was heated it lost any kind of structure and resembled porridge. Normally mince stays together in bigger chunks but this here looked almost like soup in its consistency.
However, it did look alright after adding the tomato sauce (ASDA Smartprice by the way, this time good quality) and I really hoped that it would at least taste ok.

But of course I was disappointed, the taste was very strange and artificial with a greasy and unpleasant aftertaste. The texture is for me the worst; it doesn't even feel like meat and there were many, many hard and disgusting pieces in the mince.

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This is a Smartprice product I'm definitely not buying again; 80pence for the whole bag of 700 gram might be cheap but it's not even worth this amount of money. Buying mince in bulk or when it is on offer and freezing it at home is in the long run not much more expensive and at least you know hat you are eating.

If you are really tight on a budget that try mixing the Smartprice mince with fresh mince; that should be fine for a bolognese sauce and not too expensive.

As a student I don't have that much money on the moment but honestly, I'd rather not eat Bolognese sauce than using this mince again.

For me it's not even a single star out of 10.

Summary: see review