Or the supermarkets selling rubbery chicken?!

[elm26]

I've had chicken breasts and a whole chicken in the last 2 weeks that have had this weird rubbery texture when cooked. It's really off putting and ends up being binned. I'm not over cooking it. This has been happening at least once a month with a batch of chicken (a big pack of 8 breast) or a whole chicken etc for a while now. I've tried Sainsbury's, Tescos, Waitrose and Asda and I've had a batch from each of them. Does anyone know what is happening here?!

I might just switch to chicken thigh, I've cooked a large chicken tonight for a mini roast and was going to use the leftover meat in a soup and a pasta dish this week but all of us have had to bin it and that's £9 down the drain 😩

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Exactly. People want cheap meat and turns a blind eye to how the animals are treated, then complain it's shit quality. Of course it is! It's factory farmed for maximum profit.

If you have to eat meat then at least buy the best welfare grade there is.

Same here. I've been complaining of this for a few years now. I don't eat as much chicken as I used to because of it. It's mostly breasts, but I had a few packs of rubbery thighs last year, so i've not bought chicken at all since.

I had this in a takeaway curry from a restaurant. The texture was smooth, bouncy and just repulsive. Turned my stomach and I’ve not ordered from there again. Others had a different curry and didn’t complain.

We use a butcher. On the rare occasion we get some from the supermarket the difference in quality is shocking but in taste and texture. The butcher is expensive but it's things like his chicken breasts are huge with the extra fillet still attached, so we only need two for three of us, plus it isn't padded out with water.

I don't tend to buy chicken breasts anymore for this exact reason, I don't get chicken that often but when I do it's always thighs which don't seem to have the texture issue.

Yes, my daughter now hates roast chicken as a result

I don't usually notice with chicken breast as I tend to slow cook it, so even if the texture feels a bit weird chopping it, when it's been slow cooked it's been fine.

Whole chicken though, usually get them from Asda. Most recently got one from Tesco thinking it would be the same, but it had a horrible texture.

This is why I use my local butcher now. I go monthly and buy loads of the deals they do.

The meat is much better quality and definitely not that hideous rubbery texture! 🥴

Yes!!! Got a Vietnamese takeaway recently from what should be a decent place and the chicken was 🤢. Weirdest texture - had to throw it away.

Yes to the raw texture! It's cooked but feels SO strange eating it. Stopped by the butchers today (which was v expensive but they're lovely and clinging on in the little high street), haven't tried it yet but DH and DS did, neither mentioned any issues. I'm so glad to see this thread, I might send it to him!

I've noticed this too. We've been eating virtually nothing made from raw chicken at the moment because it's so gross. We do have a local butcher who buys from an ethical, slow-growing supplier but you have to pay more for it.

Maybe our expectations around prices are totally out of whack. May we need to start having to pay more for quality, ethically raised meat.

I found the packs of breast meat are like this and stopped buying them. I switched to buying whole chickens and jointing it whilst raw, I find the breast meat off a whole chicken to be good although I have had ome whole chicken as you describe.

We can't afford the butchers.

I tend to buy the medium aldi whole chickens for £3.89 which have all been fine apart from that one time. That gives us 2 good breasts, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and 4 chicken wings.

Normally do breast meat for one night's dinner and on the bone meat for another nights dinner so about £1.94 protein per night as a family of 3 when we have chicken, then adding veg and carbs.

If you want to keep buying breast meat only, you could "velvet" the chicken beforehand which would tenderise the meat. Or put the breast on chopping board, cover with cling film and bash with a rolling pin, again tenderising the meat. That's what I used to do and it did help.

I’ve been reading about this and there seems to be a condition in about 20% of US chicken called “woody breast” which is due to a muscle abnormality. No one seems to knows for sure what causes it but it’s suspected that genetic manipulation is to blame as “economy” commercial chickens are bred to have over-sized breasts. And they have poor living conditions such as cramped quarters and don’t move enough and they don’t develop muscle fibre.

This is sheer speculation on my part but if this odd texture in chicken has been appearing in chicken sold in uk supermarkets in the past couple of years, then I would inspect the country of origin labels carefully, because I suspect it’s because these are lower quality chickens that were previously banned under EU law.

But pay attention because labelling laws may have changed since we left the EU, not sure. Or it could be that some previously chemical or substance previously banned in chicken under EU law is now permitted.

I hope someone who works in the industry can enlighten us but I doubt that supermarkets are going to shout about this sort of thing.

I had this the other week. It took me years to eat chicken again after having campylobactor. I knew I had cooked the chicken well but the texture felt raw when i tried to eat it. I had run out of meat from the butchers and had grabbed some from sainsburys. I would rather never eat it than experience that texture again.

I tend to buy the medium aldi whole chickens for £3.89 which have all been fine apart from that one time.

And this is the issue, a whole chicken for £3.89! Scandalous and and I’m sure if people really took the time to see what factory farming entailed they’d never eat a supermarket chicken again. And for all of you bleating that it’s all you can afford, try a can of pulses, dirt cheap, full of protein and grown humanely 😄

First thought is have you seen the chickens that go into those packs for the supermarket? They're pale, weak and ill looking.

I always think...Aldi £2.35 for 2 chicken breast which is the majority of the bird. Or about £3.20 for a full chicken. The farmer isn't making any money out of that so what has to give? Food quality and living standards for the bird.

Buy from your butcher.

We buy from our butcher, farm fresh chickens are £7.50 each which we find are really tasty, but really only feed 2/3 people, but I would rather less, more tasty meat. People think buying from butchers is expensive, but you don’t need to buy as much to get something tasty, mince meat and sausages the same.