I took at trip to makros yesterday to buy my weekly bulk of chicken… and saw, in the frozen section, 10kgs of the stuff. I usually get 2.5 kgs fresh. When I got home, i noticed it said 80% chicken on the receipt. Didn’t think anything of it… until I tasted it. It was DISGUSTING.
Completely unable to eat it. What i’m wondering is what else goes into it? I got told by quite a few people that it’s just water, but there is such a bitter and salty taste to it, i cant stomach the smell let alone texture. I tried ‘80% chicken’ on google, but nothing came up… apart from a story about 1 monkey killing 80 chickens lol. If anyone could help…?
Depends where it’s from mate. It may be water, it may be added proteins, MSG, salt etc. I’d rather pay a bit extra for decent meat and be safe. If you have a good local butcher, and you give him repeat business, it’s cheaper anyway.
As a matter of taste, I’d rather eat turkey though!
I buy my frozen chicken from Costco, although I’m not sure if they’re in England. It has 8% “moisture-enhancing brine” and it tastes pretty good. They claim industry average is 15% which is probably true. I’m going to guess yours was made by some company trying to cut corners by putting way too much water and salt into the product.
It was a cardboard box with nothing except ‘premium chicken (80%)’ in small writing. I usually get the fresh stuff, but I was thinking with my wallet! Shame really, i’m giving it to my rugby club as a freebie, see if they want it. Complete waste of money. Definitely won’t be going down the frozen route again.
[quote]JN7844 wrote:
I buy my frozen chicken from Costco, although I’m not sure if they’re in England. It has 8% “moisture-enhancing brine” and it tastes pretty good. They claim industry average is 15% which is probably true. I’m going to guess yours was made by some company trying to cut corners by putting way too much water and salt into the product.
[/quote]
[quote]rugggby wrote:
I took at trip to makros yesterday to buy my weekly bulk of chicken… and saw, in the frozen section, 10kgs of the stuff. I usually get 2.5 kgs fresh. When I got home, i noticed it said 80% chicken on the receipt. Didn’t think anything of it… until I tasted it. It was DISGUSTING.
Completely unable to eat it. What i’m wondering is what else goes into it? I got told by quite a few people that it’s just water, but there is such a bitter and salty taste to it, i cant stomach the smell let alone texture. I tried ‘80% chicken’ on google, but nothing came up… apart from a story about 1 monkey killing 80 chickens lol. If anyone could help…?[/quote]
I suggest you check out Alex Rileys documentary ‘Britain’s Really Disgusting Foods’
Here’s a link to the chicken portion of the show, fast forward to 1 minute into the clip. Check out all the episodes, very interesting, esp. the Sausages V Bangers bit!
Buying cheap from a large faceless supplier is not an option considering the potential shite you can end up with!
If you can find a butcher that slaughters their own animals you are on to a winner as far a quality goes!
Any of the ingredients posted so far could be in the chicken. There are two key ingredients that are in there for sure. These two ingredients are what the ‘industry’ uses to increase the weight of the chicken. The two are water and phosphates. The water is too add volume and the phosphate is what holds the water in so it doesn’t just leak out. It binds the water too the protein. They must be using an ungodly amount of phosphates to increase the weight by that much. It is also the source of the bad flavor you described.
Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Food Scientist
of the show, fast forward to 1 minute into the clip. Check out all the episodes, very interesting, esp. the Sausages V Bangers bit!