Friend shot some hogs in Florida and gave us some meat.
Thats great but the meat has systs in it.
Small and large . Looks like Bot Fly damage.
I am reluctant to cook it up.

Just toss it or ??????????????????

I wouldn't feel safe eating it. Contact SkyPup. He can answer all your questions.

Bot fly larvae would be in the nasal cavity, mouth, or possibly lungs.


Cysts in muscular tissue are usually internal parasite larvae in various stages of development such as stomach thread worms, round worms, tape worms, etc.

The eggs often are coughed up and hatch out in the lungs and then migrate throughout various tissues back to the GI tract to mature in the intestines and become mature egg laying worms again.


Most likely they are tapeworm cysts:


http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/


http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/gen_info/faqs.html





Another reason to properly cook ALL PORK.

Toss. Why take the chance.

Not sure I've ever been THAT hungry.

I'd toss and go to the piggly wiggly and buy some that got good drugs growing up.

Wild hogs are generally pretty healthy but do not live in a sterile environment, epidemiological population dynamics sees many parasites, bacteria, viruses and such cycle through them during differing natural climactic events. They certainly may be carriers of sub-clinical infections/infestations of various diseases both infectious and parasitic.

Bottom line is when they become acutely ill, they die as Mother Nature is cruel and harsh.

It always pays to examine their internal organs when processing them and be on the lookout for signs of disease.

I would say that domestic pork probably has about the same or worse chances of being infected with a zoonotic disease transmissible to humans, particulary due to the high concentrations of animals being processed and the processing process being contaminated accidentally.

Pork shoulder is usually $1.88/lb or cheaper during the summer.  Just sayin'.....................

Thank you.
OUT it goes.

Yummy that sound delish I quit eating fresh speckled trout because of the parasites I would find when fileting them.

Vince

Like my mother used to say!   Cook pork thoroughly, and she meant cook it, no more blood.    She was raised on wild and domestic hogs in East Texas back in the 20’s and 30’s

Wolf    

22 years in the restaurant industry here. pork has cysts. we cut them out. Usually only one or two in an entire shoulder. Are we talking riddled with cysts or just a couple?

I would pass on that.

My buddy worked for Oscar Mayer for years and he said the cysts were in all the hogs and some were huge.

Put it thru the grinder, you'll never notice the difference.

And this very old hoax video shows up yet again.



Didn't think people were still falling for stuff a simple google search could answer.



 

My dad used to work in a restaurant, like 50 years ago, he has told me about cutting the cysts out of the meat also. We talked about it and speculated most places probably just go ahead and grind it into sausage.
I have several aspects of looking at the OPs question;1: I personally wouldn't want to eat that meat. 2: we probably eat a shit ton of that stuff every day in store bought meat. Look at how much meat and jerky and stuff comes from Brazil or other south american places, think they would throw it out, or go ahead and sell it to us? 3: as a poster above said: go to the store and buy meat full of chemicals. Also:
Honestly, hogs are plentiful: go shoot another one.

So Skypup, if you processed a hog for eating and the meat had cysts in it would you cut them out and cook it or would you toss it?  I imagine you've probably got more experience than anyone else I know.  If I ever finally get a chance to finally hunt hogs and find cysts in the meat it would be pretty disheartening to have to trash it unnecessarily.

All game is going to have cysts in it, the higher the population density of the animals on the land the higher the concentration of parasites, bacteria, viruses, mycoplasma, etc. in the host population. Epizootic disease outbreaks in wild non-domestic animals are almost always due to high population densities, it is natures way of cutting down the burden on the land.

Hogs carry many intestinal worms, stomach worms, lung worms, kidney worms, etc as do all other domestic and wild game do. The larvae of the parasites travel all through the lungs, muscles and other areas of the body before they mature in the intestinal tract.

I normally check the liver for external milk spots, general color, and fibrosis, external milk spots are indicative of heavy round worm infestation. Cutting the liver with a sharp knife should be like cutting butter, if there is resistance to the blade and the hepatocytes are hardened it represents chronic disease of some nature, same with the kidneys.

Also eyeball all the mesenteric lymph nodes, any enlarged means buzzard bait.

Keep your hands out of your mouth when cleaning any domestic or wild animal and wear gloves, you could have a million worm eggs under your finger nails if you do not wear gloves.

Cook all game to proper temperature prior to eating.

Enjoy!

I cut them out. Not a major concern. Cook well. Eat well.

This is your brain on pork tapeworms:

Thousands of Lesions in Disseminated Cysticercosis - Magnetic resonance imaging of the cranium, T2 weighted sagittal image showing multiple well-circumscribed cysts with presence of scolex.





As previously mentioned, cook that sheet and you will be fine.