I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my life and the smell of turkey (any kind- ground or a whole Thanksgiving turkey) is what nauseates me most. I can stand bacon, chicken, steak cooking. Turkey— eughhhh

Check the package to see if it was packed in vinegar. I don’t know why they do that

I’ve found the solution is to buy leaner meat. The family packs of 85 percent ground Turkey are darker meat more likely to have this nasty taste/odor. Go for the 93 or lower fat variety.

I've been having a bad experience with it as well. It smells like a wet dog and its mushy as hell. Its doesn't even seem like meat, and it doesn't taste good either. Something is going on with the ground turkey being sold these days.

Ground turkey is such a pitiful excuse for food that it's not worth buying in the first place. Why risk getting sick? "When in doubt, throw it out."

I just picked up some ground turkey from Trader Joe’s for my dogs and when I cooked it up it smelled so bad! I never cook turkey except for Thanksgiving so I didn’t know if this was normal or not. I’m glad I read this thread!

Not inclining me to try ground turkey here.

I have cooked with ground turkey to replace ground beef in many dishes for many years. That may have stopped after cooking up some fresh ground turkey with a terrible nauseating, lingering smell the other night. The whole meal went in the trash. I was spraying Lysol and opening windows. My pan and utensils stunk even after washing them. I rewashed then in bleach and still the smell lingered. Gross!!!

Just had this happen tonight. Smelled like a thanksgiving dinner. I think the “natural flavors” were overdone. Couldn’t get the super turkey taste out of my pasta sauce. Chucked the whole thing. Not spoiled but strong turkey and fake turkey flavor.

This happened to us last night. I was halfway through making dinner when I finally couldn’t face the smell anymore and admitted it was bad. Ran to the store to get more turkey #2, picked up some other stuff too, and ended up leaving the turkey #2 behind somewhere (the cart? The checkout kiosk?!). Trip 3 to the store and we finally got dinner done

I suspect there is a careless processing problem. Consumer reports found bacteria in 50 percent of ground turkey they tested. It was the bacteria found in fecal matter.