There’s a new chicken phenomenon hitting supermarket shelves, and it’s not exactly appetising.
While roast chicken dinners and crispy fried wings are beloved meals, have you ever heard of spaghetti chicken?
Prepare to lose your appetite, as Texas-based mother Alesia Cooper discovered when she bought chicken breasts from a well-known supermarket chain. As she washed the chicken, it began to disintegrate in her hands, turning stringy and falling apart.
Describing it as ‘fake meat,’ Cooper shared her experience on Facebook, expressing her aversion to bone-in chicken since the incident.
The post quickly went viral, with users on X helping to shed light on the bizarre occurrence, known as ‘spaghetti meat’ or, in this case, ‘spaghetti chicken.’ This phenomenon is a result of breeding practices aimed at accelerating the growth of chickens, particularly their breast size.
When chickens grow too large too quickly, the muscles’ tissues don’t receive sufficient oxygen, causing the fibers to separate and resemble strands of spaghetti.
Despite its unappealing appearance, spaghetti chicken is safe to eat, albeit chewier than normal chicken. The rise of this abnormality is attributed to genetic selection for faster-growing and plumper birds, resulting in increased meat yield.
According to Dr. Massimiliano Petracci from the University of Bologna, fast-growing birds are associated with these abnormalities, which have become increasingly common since 2015, appearing in around four to five percent of breast meat samples.
To combat this trend, some companies in the US, such as Whole Foods and Wendy’s, are reverting to slower-growing chicken breeds.
The reactions to spaghetti meat on social media range from disgust to caution, with some users expressing their intentions to avoid chicken altogether or opt for fresh meat markets instead of large corporate stores.
It’s also essential to watch out for ‘woody breast,’ another consequence of rapid chicken growth, which results in tough and leathery meat.
So, the next time you’re preparing chicken for dinner, keep an eye out for any spaghetti-like textures—it might not be the pasta you were hoping for.
