The unsettling cause of white stripes in raw chicken
Few things in the culinary world look as unsightly as white stripes running through a raw chicken breast fillet, but while these pieces of pale gristle are easy to remove with a knife most people don’t realise what they indicate about the bird.
According to Compassion USA, while fat running along the sides of a fillet is perfectly normal, any white stripes in the centre of the cut could be an indication that the bird you’re about to eat was suffering from intense muscular disorder.
Sky-high demand for cooked chooks has farmers breeding birds bigger and fatter, in increasingly cramped conditions. These hefty birds face greater risk of muscular disorders, like the white striping you might have noticed in the meat.
While striped meats are still fine to eat, the chicken is far tougher, and many believe the flavour is inferior to cuts that come from chickens processed under ‘free-range’ conditions.
What are your thoughts? Do you think white stripes in chicken breast are a turn off?