A Texan mother was completely shocked when the poultry she was preparing for dinner turned into stringy strands of spaghetti.
Explaining that pasta was not on the menu that night, the mother shared a post on social media showing the raw chicken she was washing falling apart in her hands.
“I think it’s that fake meat,” she writes in her now viral Facebook post, inspiring online users to consider going vegan. Keep reading for more on the stringy chicken!
On March 21, Alesia Cooper from Irving, Texas, shared a disturbing photo of a chicken breast protesting its future place on a plate.
The mother of two writes, “I thought about posting this, but since I had to see it, you must too.” The post, which also shows an image of chicken hanging in spaghetti-like strands, continues, “I was cooking for my kids a few weeks ago and cleaning the meat like I normally do, and when I was about to start cooking, it turned into this (SIC).”
Lab-Grown Chicken
Online users weighed in on the issue. Some suggested the chicken was 3D-printed or grown in a petri dish.
One of them says, “That’s lab-grown chicken. It’s a new way they make chicken because in recent years with avian flu and shortages of raw materials, they didn’t have any products. Last year it was announced that a way had been found to make chicken in a lab, and that’s what’s now on store shelves.”
“GMO lab meat,” writes another.
A third concludes that it is “fake, I won’t buy it anymore.”
Another user offers a more plausible explanation for the shredded chicken breast: “It’s not lab-grown meat or 3D-printed meat. It comes from real chickens. The problem is that greedy chicken producers force their chickens to eat growth hormones so they grow too quickly.”
Larger Chicken Breasts
The Wall Street Journal reports that “spaghetti meat,” along with tough, chewy meat called “woody breast,” is reportedly the result of breeding poultry to grow their chicken breasts as large as possible as quickly as possible.
So there’s more meat per bird and more profit to be had.
“There is evidence these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds,” says Dr. Massimiliano Petracci, a professor of agriculture and food sciences at the University of Bologna in Italy, to the WSJ.
“Woody breast” and “spaghetti meat” may sound disturbing, but according to industry experts, consuming them poses no harm.
But it certainly hurts the chickens. After all, their large bodies are too big for their small legs.
Chubby Chickens
According to the National Chicken Council statistics, meat chickens nowadays grow much faster compared to the past. In 2000, the average chicken went to market at 47 days old weighing 5.03 pounds. In 2023, the average chicken still goes to market on day 47, but now the chubby chickens weigh 6.54 pounds.
Comparing these figures to almost a century ago, in 1925 meat chickens took 112 days to reach a market weight of 2.5 pounds.
These changes reflect the increasing demand for white meat over the past century, leading the industry to switch to chickens with “proportionally larger chicken breasts.”
Chickens Are Getting Bigger
Dr. Michael Lilburn, a professor at Ohio State University’s Poultry Research Center, tells the Washington Post: “As people keep eating more and more chicken, chickens are likely to have to get even bigger … So we also have to increase the proportion of breast meat in each bird.”
“What people don’t realize is that it’s consumer demand that’s forcing the industry to adapt,” Lilburn said regarding the population’s preference for chicken nuggets, wings, sandwiches, and other cheap chicken products. “It’s a deceptively small but loud minority that raises a lot of legitimate questions. Most of the American population still doesn’t care where their food comes from, as long as it’s cheap.”
While fast-food chains and some grocery stores have partly supported the demand for larger breast meat, the New York Times reports that some companies are demanding meat from slowly growing chickens. Their argument is that “birds get more time to grow before they are slaughtered, leading to a healthier and happier life – and better tasting meat.”
Disgust
Meanwhile, online users express their disgust at the spaghetti-like chicken.
A cyberfan asks, “They look like worms! What are they feeding us?”
“I had one like that a while ago, too. It looked like this on the bottom. It doesn’t look the same as it used to when we were young,” shares a second.
Other netizens suggest shopping elsewhere: “You’ll get better-quality chicken meat from a local butcher or coop. I recommend going there for your meat.”
And some were inspired to become vegetarian.
“I’m going vegan!!! Too much lab food around,” writes one, while another adds, “That’s why we are thinking of just eating fish.”
It’s really unfortunate that these poor animals suffer so much pain in their short lives due to the agribusiness.
Let us know what you think and share this story so we can hear what others have to say!
