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 😩

Well said 👏👏👏

No amount of marinating or similar is going to make me want to eat chicken like that. The bird was clearly not healthy so not good to eat. Red meat is more nutritious overall and the animals live in better conditions. One life also feeds many. We eat red meat bulked out with pulses and vegetables.

Oh I'm so glad you posted this!! I thought it was just 'a bad one-off' that I'd bought from Sainsbury's last week!

Cost £9 too for an extra large...and I had family round for Sunday lunch! It was very embarrassing! My Sunday roast is usually fabulous...this was a car crash of epic proportions! We ended up cooking sausages in the end ti have with our 'trimmings' as the chicken was inedible 😔 Really, really rubbery - horrid!

What's going on do you think? 😮

In the egg 'shortage' I saw plenty of cage eggs left, people clearly drawing a line there, yet will keep buying cheap chicken. There are many other sources of protein!

This - it's been a known problem for a while. I believe the industry is frantically trying to figure out what's causing it. And it can affect any and all chickens, regardless of where you get them from. Supermarket, butcher, free range, etc... Google 'woody chicken' for info.

There are a lot of issues in chicken farming right now with avian flu, woody chicken etc

Yep I've have this and not just in the UK. In Spain we now only buy the top organic stuff when we are there as we had the crunchy chicken syndrome with the standard range.

In the UK I never buy Wairtose chicken despite being a Waitrose fan and their higher welfare guarantee. I found it tough slimy and stringy so only ever buy M&S now. Chicken like it should taste.
Another town with no butcher, unfortunately.

Yes we've had this with Tesco and Sainsbury's. It started in lockdown imo when breast for example weren't being trimmed properly and now it's gone all rubbery and stringy.

Go to the butcher now.

YANBU.
I gave up on supermarket chicken long ago. Even the organic free range stuff. It’s rank. Rubbery and tough.
Butchers every time.

You do remember that Gove and Rees Mogg were obsessed with getting cheap Aussie imports in with regard to Brexit - so we could have 'cheap sheep meat etc- I am now eating less meat but better quality. I understand people need to be able to feed families but it's unlikely a £3.79 chicken is anything but factory farmed rubbish quality

a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese cookery velvetise chicken which tenderises it and changes the texture if you are finding takeaways a bit different texture. https://www.recipetineats.com/velveting-chicken-chinese-restaurant-tenderise-chicken/

I buy the M&S free range ones, quite often they are yellow snickered. Husband buys coop chicken which is usually ok.

our butchers don’t have higher welfare chicken.

id rather eat less than those anonymous trays of chicken breasts in the supermarket.

rarely have takeaways and tend to eat fish when out.

Same here. I bought ex dairy beef skirt steak from up the road for £8 for 600g, and that does six adult serves of curry with only veggies. Pulses would stretch it further to £1 a serve. Actually has flavour of its own too, unlike supermarket chicken.

The majority of chickens you find in your supermarket are of the "Broiler" variety. They are killed just 42 days after birth, after spending their few weeks in limited space and being pumped full of antibiotics, due to the filthy living conditions. Also, don't believe that the "Red Tractor" logo means that the animals are treated any more humanely! If you are going to eat chicken, I personally think that seeing where the animal lived it's life is the best option. Unfortunately this is probably difficult for most of us and usually more expensive.

All supermarket chicken is disgusting these days, especially Ocado own brand. I can't bring myself to eat it anymore 🤢

Butchers don’t necessarily have better chicken. They are price driven like any other retailer. Ours does sell label Anglais and that costs about £15 a chicken which probably tells you what they should cost compared to the factory chickens

I have found the same and only eat free range now from M&S

I find even the Waitrose free range to be terrible.

I would rather not eat it, than eat the generic supermarket ones.

A butcher I used to go to told me that cheap chicken is graded by the percentage of salty water injected into it before sale, so you get 10%, 15% and so on.

If you look at a cheap whole chicken they have massive breasts and small legs. A good chicken, ie a slower grown one has smaller breasts and bigger legs.

This was long before Brexit so now presumably you've got cheap salty chicken produced in some hell hole in Brazil to boot.

It's particularly noticeable in breasts because you can actually see the water running out of them when you cook them.

We actually stopped eating chicken when we lived in Copenhagen- unless you wanted to pay £22 for organic French ones ( and even they were no better than a M&S top end one) they were absolutely awful skinny, watery ,mass produced rubbish- same by the way was true of their sausages and bacon- you would think it would be amazing- it really wasn't- A Swedish woman told me that in Sweden they wouldn't eat Danish meat produce- or eggs!! I ate an awful lot of fish and smoked salmon and veggie stuff

I have noticed this recently! I spent 15 years as a chef, in a cooks job now to suit childcare and the last 3 months or so have noticed an odd texture in a couple chicken breasts. Like trying to slice a washing up sponge once it's been cooked. Always only one or two from a large pack, not the whole lot. I roast the breasts whole so wasn't slicing them raw, can't figure out what it is, but defo had a few ropey ones recently.

Sorry as in the chicken was cooked not the washing up sponge. No idea how that slices once cooked 😅

Well my mum can’t, for a start as she is elderly, frail and has no access to smartphones or computers.
Im not prepared to spend £12 on a pork chop to be delivered to her.
Online butchery is extortionate . It saps into upper middle class kudos, so your response is discriminatory as poor people have a right to meat too.

Re butchers how do you know what quality your getting from them?

Noticed this at home for a while now but for the first time last month experienced it in a restaurant in a dish made with chicken breast - texture was awful; I ate about 3 bites and left the rest - made me feel sick

Thighs seem to be ok, but breasts are not worth the risk unless butcher has an offer on

Our butchers can tell me which farm and location the meat comes from. I try and pick the nearest best quality so less fuel has been used and it supports local farmers.

Ok