Or the supermarkets selling rubbery chicken?!

As an aside, no UK meat contains growth hormones, just so we are clear.

What you need to look for is slow grown chickens, so at the moment that's only M&S and Waitrose.

I feel sure that most people couldn’t afford such luxury, given the price.

Supermarket chicken is generally not very good. A lot more expensive than chicken from a butcher’s shop/stall and very small pieces.

I’m aware that not everyone has access to a proper retailer, but supermarket chicken is very much the weaker end of the meat market

Order it online. Suppliers who accept online orders usually take them from most areas of the UK.

Best to buy organic chicken, or quorn.

Birds grown by supermarket suppliers are bred for large size and breast meat. Rapid weight gain leads to poor circulation, which causes tissue damaging chemicals to accumulate in the affected breast tissue. The chicken’s body responds by making tough, spongy, fibrous meat that is unpleasant to eat.

This is such a sanctimonious response given that vast swathes of the country doesn't have access to a butcher.
I live in a very large town , in the south east and there's not one single butcher around, my mum lives in an even larger town in the midlands. Not a butcher in sight.

I'm in Ireland.

I've never come across this issue and we tend to eat a lot of chicken.

Where is your chicken coming from? Is it from within the UK or is it imported?

Revolting. Why would wairose chicken have this issue though? They always prided themselves on the provenance of their meat and higher welfare standard.

I found this issue was more prevalent after covid and put it down to growth hormones. If you look closely at the meat and see very thin white lines marbling the flesh then the chicken has been 'force' grown with hormones and chemicals. I no longer buy fresh chicken from Sainsbury's due to this problem although I don't buy their beef mince either since they started vacuum packing it
As for water being injected I've found that if you freeze chicken and then defrost it, then a lot of the water comes out leaving it a bit better for cooking.

I agree it's the water content. I bought a kilo of frozen Iceland chicken, it was soaking wet once defrosted, lost about a third of its weight and meat was a weird spongy texture, really unappetising. Have bought sainsbury fresh chicken breast this week, opinion tbc

Yes, slightly pinker, a bit veiny looking and (if you can prod it) hard to the touch.

Agree that m&S doesn't seem to have this problem. Nor do decent butchers. Not all cheap chicken does, but some do.

You can still cook with it but it takes a bit of effort - you need to tenderise it. So spices plus yoghurt and marinated it for a few hours before cooking.

It is appalling really what intensive farming has done to these birds. And it's not something that can be fixed by just being nicer to chickens - once a flock has changed to have this propensity it can't really be turned around. We are actually fucking with evolution now.

So we ran a butchers for a short while and what I discovered is the birds that have a lot of room to roam the meat is much tougher to eat. We put this down to building more muscle. There was also something about the skin that made it tough and quite dry. The run of the mill chicken was so much tastier. Sad but true.

That's why I don't eat chicken. It would be like eating dog or cat to people who have those as pets. I don't buy commercial eggs either, when we don't get any over the winter we just do without. The poultry industry revolts me.
Though I don't think you'd normally eat a laying chicken anyway. I think the ones bred for meat are dufferent breeds, like dairy cows vs beef ones. (But I could have made that up!)

The last time this was discussed, a poster pointed out that you can spot the woody breasts in packs. They tend to be bigger in size than an averagebreat, and a darker shade of pink.

They've always been in the larger pack sizes when I've had them. I steer clear of these now.

A while back every chicken breast I seemed to try had this. Ridiculously tough...texture was like that of a pork chop. Absolutely inedible. It was definitely this woody breast thing.

Some chicken I've had recently though has had a weird texture...not tough, more spongy. Kids and dh complained about it.

Yes, bouncy chicken. I thought DH had boiled it or something weird.

Great, so humans aren't just treating poultry appallingly but they're so manipulated that people kill them buy them and bin them because they're disgusting 😞

I have, as well. Haven't bought chicken for quite awhile. It's really gross. I'm honestly gobsmacked learning about woody breast!

Same here! Woody chicken is awful and puts me off too! I've wasted loads of chicken breast when I'm dicing it up for curries or pasta. It's revolting. I bought a rotisserie chicken from Morrisons the other day and it was lovely! I don't have chicken all that much, but that will be my go to now!

I’ve completely gone off chicken , thought it was just me who’s found it a weird texture recently!!

I think it must be that woody breast as the description is exactly like the texture I have had. It's only recently that I've noticed it, so something must have changed with the growth hormones that the suppliers are using. It has put me off chicken.

I found this and only buy M&S now. It's the only one I've found that is consistently good.

I have never heard of this before and I keep chickens! Mine are just for eggs and friendship so their meat has never been a consideration.

Me too! I thought I just had a run of bad luck buying chicken.

Yes, it's this. It's fucking disgusting when you get a woody breast.