Mid-December, a Tik Tok circulated that left me, to put it plainly, mouth agape. In the clip, made by Tik Tok user Emily Harper, we’re promised a trick our narrator learned in “nutrition a couple years ago.” Nutrition, I can only surmise, is some sort of health or wellness class, perhaps with a dietary premise. Well, Emily, let’s see it. She starts by adding ground beef to a non-stick pan, pretty standard issue stuff to start. What happened next left me, and a huge portion of the internet, in shambles. She shows us, the viewer, the digital amorphous mob, all the grease and water that seeps out of the ground beef once it’s cooked. “All this grease is disgusting,” she writes in a text overlay across the now-cooked beef. Emily then moves the pan to the sink, pours out the excess moisture, empties the beef into a metal sieve, and runs it under the tap. The fat collects at the bottom of the sink like an oil slick on asphalt. She returns the rinsed beef to the pan for a final sear before i...
