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Fast-Growth Chickens Produce New Industry Woe: 'Spaghetti Meat' (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Chicken companies spent decades breeding birds to grow rapidly and develop large breast muscles. Now the industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the consequences ranging from squishy fillets known as "spaghetti meat," because they pull apart easily, to leathery ones known as "woody breast." [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source.] The abnormalities pose no food safety risk, researchers and industry officials say. They are suspected side effects of genetic selection that now allows meat companies to raise a 6.3-pound bird in 47 days, roughly twice as fast as 50 years ago, according to the National Chicken Council.
That efficiency drive has helped U.S. meat giants such as Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Perdue Farms and Sanderson Farms produce a record 42 billion pounds of chicken nuggets, tenders and other products in 2018. Now, it's adding an estimated $200 million or more in annual industry expenses to identify and divert breast fillets that are too tough, too squishy or too striped with bands of white tissue to sell in restaurants or grocery stores, according to researchers at the University of Arkansas.
That efficiency drive has helped U.S. meat giants such as Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Perdue Farms and Sanderson Farms produce a record 42 billion pounds of chicken nuggets, tenders and other products in 2018. Now, it's adding an estimated $200 million or more in annual industry expenses to identify and divert breast fillets that are too tough, too squishy or too striped with bands of white tissue to sell in restaurants or grocery stores, according to researchers at the University of Arkansas.
It's funny, I'm not keen on lab grown beef, but I'd probably go for lab grown chicken... maybe it's because it would be essentially what we have now, without the suffering of millions of chickens raised in really poor conditions.
Also because it appears lab grown chicken has a much lower bar to meet commercial chicken quality as the summary illuminates.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
your alternative source is literally just an article about spaghetti, you dinks.
Their customers will eat anything.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Because the Slashdot editors are such stellar professionals and the "alternative source" to the paywalled site goes to an article on actual fucking spaghetti (with no connection to the main story at all) (ffs), here's the main article's text:
Fast-Growth Chickens Produce New Industry Woe: ‘Spaghetti Meat’
Jacob Bunge March 10, 2019
Chicken companies spent decades breeding birds to grow rapidly and develop large breast muscles. Now the industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the consequences ranging from squishy fillets known as “spaghetti meat,” because they pull apart easily, to leathery ones known as “woody breast.”
The abnormalities pose no food safety risk, researchers and industry officials say. They are suspected side effects of genetic selection that now allows meat companies to raise a 6.3-pound bird in 47 days, roughly twice as fast as 50 years ago, according to the National Chicken Council.
That efficiency drive has helped U.S. meat giants such as Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. , Perdue Farms Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc. produce a record 42 billion pounds of chicken nuggets, tenders and other products in 2018. Now, it’s adding an estimated $200 million or more in annual industry expenses to identify and divert breast fillets that are too tough, too squishy or too striped with bands of white tissue to sell in restaurants or grocery stores, according to researchers at the University of Arkansas.
“There is proof that these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds,” said Dr. Massimiliano Petracci, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy, who leads a team of researchers investigating the chicken breast problems in breeds used in commercial farms.
Two poultry-breeding firms—Cobb-Vantress, owned by Tyson, and Aviagen Inc.—supply the bulk of breeding stock for the world’s chicken companies, industry officials said. Years of matching up genetic lines has boosted each bird’s yield of breast muscle, the white meat that sells for a roughly 13% premium to overall wholesale chicken meat prices, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.
Researchers and breeders are still trying to pin down the exact cause of problems, a Tyson spokesman said. “While there are some factors linked to the occurrence—including bird weight, feed ingredients and the time of year the bird is grown—even a combination of these factors will not necessarily produce the same issues consistently,” he said.
An Aviagen spokeswoman had no comment.
Spaghetti meat—a name researchers have given chicken breast fillets that can be picked up and pulled apart by hand, or punctured easily with a fingertip—began appearing in 2015 and now can be detected in around 4% to 5% of breast meat samples, researchers said.
“It looks like spaghetti noodles,” said Dr. Casey Owens, a University of Arkansas professor, adding that the affected muscle fibers have a stringy texture.
Researchers also began observing white striping in commercially raised chickens around 2010, with woody breast appearing on the scene around 2013, Dr. Petracci said. Woody breast has been found in around 10% of samples, while white striping occurs in around 30% of chicken breasts sampled, he said. The severity of the problems can vary widely and often doesn’t affect the entire breast, researchers said.
Meat scientists said they suspect the rapid growth rate of commercially raised chickens may lead breast muscle tissue to outgrow the oxygen supply provided by chickens’ developing circulatory systems, at which point muscle fibers can degrade. That can alter the density and texture of the meat, they said.
Some restaurant and grocery companies aren’t waiting for chicken companies to solve the problems. Burger chain Wendy’s Co. in 2016 noticed toughness in some of its grilled chicken sandwiches. The chain in 2017
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
'Special chicken' (meow).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Their customers will eat anything.
Close, but the truth is Arby's customers will eat anything that has Arby's cheese sauce on it.
Even though it makes me feel slightly odd, who can resist its moist pleasures?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Like any process of selective breeding you have to go through each batch, and identify and selectively remove the ones that have genetic traits that are undesirable. Donald should read chicken industry has slacked off on their selective breeding quality control and it has resulted in undesired mutations. Always grow more than what you need because an uncertain number is going to be defective. And every so often you have to go back to going through the stock with a fine-tooth comb in order to filter out bad genetics
I first noticed what is now called "woody breast" about 7 years ago, but about 2 years ago it got some prevalent that I stopped eating chicken for a while. I eventually found a local farm producer that raises their chickens humanely and doesn't use the super-growing varieties. The cost is not significantly more than factory farmed chicken, it's better for the birds and the quality is night and day better. Plus, they butcher the birds to order - you can get backs and necks for stock for pennies and those birds were happily pecking away earlier that morning.
I listened to a podcast and did a little research on the subject and they're really stumped. The problem is that it's not unique to the fast-growing breeds - it occurs fairly regularly in the original stock too, so doing some cross-breeding to clear out the problem won't work. They have some new gizmo that can detect woody breast without contact (some difference in conductivity of sound?), which they're looking to bring online while they search for the genetic, environmental or husbandry basis of the condition. Right now, they have the processors feel the meat and redirect anything that feels hinky to the chicken nugget stream. (Apparently, the meat itself is fine, and the textural differences are obliterated by grinding.)
I suspect that there is some genetic component that has now become concentrated in the breed stock, because there is way more of it today than even a few years ago. Thank god for my local farmer!
Chickens (and other poultry) raised out of doors and allowed to choose their own favourite foods are obviously healthier, happier - and provide far tastier, more healthy meat.
The hideous fallacy of treating farming as an industry has caused an immense amount of unspeakable suffering for animals, while turning out unpleasant, tasteless meat that lacks vital nutrients - and may contain serious health hazards such as dangerous bacteria, viruses and antibiotics.
More is not always better. Cheaper is rarely better. Making very rich people even richer is not the purpose of farming.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
1. Find a new marketing gimmick for the stringy chicken meat. Maybe it is for kids!
2. Make fast growth chickens grow more slowly. Give them something that slows down growth to counteract the growth hormones. Then we can all enjoy two new drugs in our meat.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I keep getting recipes calling for 6-8 oz chicken breasts. All I can find in my local megamarts are 1+ lb chicken tits. These are hard to cook, I usually end up halving them horizontally, which makes them cook better, but they don't taste better. Frozen chicken tits are iffy as hell, you never know what you're getting when you buy a bag. I've tried smaller chains and still find either 1+ lb over-amped disasters, or bags of frozen whetevs.
If you live in a city, where do you find your normal sized chicken boobs?
That said, I much prefer thighs over breasts. They haven't been bred to ginormous sizes, are cheaper (people are stupid), and taste better than the boobies.
My wife and I raise chickens, but not that type.
It sounds like they are talking about a particular four-way hybrid.
Products of the final cross have an oversupply of anabolic steroids. They literally sit in front of a bowl of food and eat, building muscle and turning into a sedentary "Arnold Schwarzenegger" bird.
Saw some at a county fair auction. Other chicken types were aware of their surroundings, often looking at other chickens, hunting for bugs, strutting around and showing off, etc. These sat in a row, looking bored, ignoring the crowd and other animals, and desultorily poking at the straw on the platform in front of them, looking for something they'd recognize as food.
If you decide not to send them to slaughter it doesn't really matter much. They outgrow their circulatory systems and die shortly after market age.
We know one chicken farmer who stopped raising these, after he noticed that at market age the were still making the little chick "peep peep" call.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...they put LOADS of chickens in these crates crowded to hell & it hurts a lot of the birds (sad, but we have to eat)...
24 hours ago you were likely completely unaware that a side effect of raising chickens is spending $200 million to throw away bad product.
Just wanted to point out that fact to dispel that bullshit "we have to eat" excuse that helps justify cruel and inhumane treatment towards animals. Yes, we do have to eat, but if we can afford to waste that much product in the process and see NO impact on the consumer end, that says a lot about what we have to do in order to produce food for humans.
And I'd sure as hell prefer to consume a natural product rather than Ahnold Schwarzechicken.
There are no grocery stores starving for meat product in the US, and we can't even remember a time when there was, so let's not believe everything the meat pushers say.
Thanks for the text. From that information, the guys "not to buy your chicken from" are Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. , Perdue Farms Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc.
The pork industry worked on a similar genetic problem not too long ago. Some of the fast growth lean pigs had a gene that caused PSA 'Pale Soft Exudative' meat when they were stressed before slaughter. A combination of genetics and better pre-slaughter handling has largely fixed it.
It's all good. When the economy collapses, and civilization falls shortly thereafter, I'm gonna be hunting healthy vegans.. No GMOs/pesticides for me, just tasty and healthy soylent green made from real vegans.
.....to produce their eggs they put LOADS of chickens in these crates crowded to hell & it hurts a lot of the birds (sad, but we have to eat)....
Bullshit... There is no goddamn reason to torture animals for food reasons. If you can't grow a free range chicken then you shouldn't be raising chickens. I'm all for eating meat, but it never fails to amaze me how some assholes will justify eating torture meat and then bitch when someone goes out into the woods and shoots a deer.
You're assuming the "bad" product actually gets discarded. In reality, it's used to make pet food.
The single biggest thing that makes "pet food" different from "human food" is the ENORMOUS variation in formulation and taste from batch to batch. Dogs don't seem to care, but people with cats are PAINFULLY aware of it. With cats, you can't just go blindly stock up on some particular brand & flavor... you have to buy a few cans from a specific (well-stocked) store (ideally, one that keeps the cans palletized & has big stacks you can dig through), run them past your cats, note their reactions... then, when you stumble upon a can they seem to really like, RUN back to the store and buy every single can of that flavor with the same specific date/batch code. And pray to your favorite deity that you can find another acceptable batch before the current one runs out.
I first noticed the problem years ago with Fancy Feast. My cat normally liked it, but every now and then, I'd buy a 24-pack in the same flavor as always, and he'd pick away at it can after can. Then, I'd buy another 24-pack from a different store, and suddenly he'd be chowing down on it again. I finally started doing A/B testing, and discovered that I could predict with 100% certainty whether he'd like or reject the last 18 cans in a 24-pack based upon his reaction to the first 6. I have multiple cats now, and they've collectively reaffirmed my initial observation... some lots of the same nominal flavor taste better (or worse) than others.
You let your cats get too specific when they were kittens.
If you feed your cats high quality kibble from kittenhood, they will not get finicky later. I've raised over 30 cats over 50+ years and not a one of them became a finicky eater. We had one develop an allergy that required him to switch to a restricted ingredient kibble, but he switched over just fine.
Cats are not naturally weird, finicky, anti-social animals. If you simply interact with them in much the same way you would with a dog early on (pick them up, bother them when they're eating, add some noise to their environment, give them consistent food and attention), they will be quite pleasant, friendly little animals. But they will get squirrely on you if you treat them with kid gloves as kittens and feed into their nutty side by catering to their every whim. My aunt was super quiet and fed hers "special" food and they were neurotic as all get out.
Of course, once you've got weirdos, there's not much you can do (we inherited a weirdo once) to change things quickly. But if you stay consistent, you can ease them out of some of their skittishness. They'll never be "normal" but they can still be good pets.
I am all for GMO, round-up, pesticides, whatever, but the taste of meat these days is f'in terrible. I started buying a particular brand of $7/lb chicken breasts because they are the only ones that are reliably not "woody" and actually have taste. Beef is going the same way. No amount of salt can actually give it flavor. Please bring back meat flavored meat!! Also, farmed indian/indonesia shrimp suck, farmed atlantic salmon isn't as good as it used to be, farmed tilapia sucks, most pork sucks because its so heavily pre-brined, etc.
Scott
Upon seeing this at first I thought they just put the woody breasts in frozen microwave meals, then I realized there's no way that's breast meat.
But nobody eats that garbage because it tastes good. I eat it because I'm lazy and I want my food in about 5 minutes. I don't think it matters what brand you buy. it's all the same chicken.
I don't think I've had spaghetti chicken, but I'm intrigued.
I've been dreaming of having spaghetti meat noodles mixed evenly with the pasta noodles since my early childhood. Then you call this "spaghetti meat". Quite disappointed. Sorry child-me.... your dream did not come true today.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I'm already happy this is a thing that really exists.
I keep thinking when I see this: "may be paywalled?". It's REALLY easy to check. And if it is, please post the paywalled link as the alternate link.
Because I couldn't read the paywalled story, I clicked on the alternative source. * facepalm *
It's pretty obvious nobody is steering this ship anymore.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There's a particular store brand of breaded chicken nuggets I like (actual breast pieces, not that chopped up garbage). Every now and then, maybe 1 in 25-50 or so, I'd get one that my best description for it is "squnchy". Sort of squishy and crunchy at the same time. I thought it might have been somehow overcooked in the microwave or maybe it was some kind of freezer burn, but all this sounds rather like what I've encountered.
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