Gritty White Globules in Precooked Grocery Store Sausage?

Question

I've been buying some various types of precooked brand-name sausages from the grocery store over the last few months, and while they've been pretty good I have consistently found these little white globs in the sausages. They don't taste very good and they're not particularly soft or easy to chew. If I had to describe them in more traditional terms, I'd say it's similar to the "grit" that I don't like on some steaks.

The sausages that I'm speaking of are small 4-6 inch links that come in plastic packaging.

It occurred to me eating it recently that maybe these were little globs of fat that hadn't been melted, and in that case maybe I was cooking the sausages incorrectly. I have a fairly limited set of instruments to work with in my kitchen right now, so I've been cooking them on the stove in the single saucepan that I have in my possession. I don't have a frying pan or anything else like that.

I'd like to know what these globules are and if there's anything I should be doing to cook my sausages differently.

Answer 1

Largish white bits like that will be either fat, cartilage, or (other) connective tissue. Once cooked, if they can be squished apart with your fingers they're fat; if they're crunchy when you bite into them they're cartilage; if they're very chewy they're connective tissue.

Fat should be quite soft once the sausages are cooked to a safe temperature, so I assume they're not that. The other substances get their structure primarily or entirely from collagen, which will break down during long, slow cooking, but that's not a normal way to cook a sausage and will probably result in a dry, grainy texture overall. If they're a problem, I would suggest trying a different brand rather than trying to cook them differently.