Do all chicken breasts shrink a lot when cooked ?

[oxoman]

There is some legislation either in place or due that will mean they have to tell you and also limit its use. TBH the cutting and processing adds enough water. I usually wrap my chicken breasts so they kind of steam cook rather than roast. Not sure how that would work with air fryer though. Over my years working as an electrician I've come across so many different what I think a dodgy practices its unreal. I wouldn't eat chicken for years after doing installations in chicken farming and processing units. Go back to around the 80s they used chlorine to bleach flour white. I'm not going into the original nuggets or twizzler things. 🤮

 

[katiewlx]

There is some legislation either in place or due that will mean they have to tell you and also limit its use. TBH the cutting and processing adds enough water. I usually wrap my chicken breasts so they kind of steam cook rather than roast. Not sure how that would work with air fryer though. Over my years working as an electrician I've come across so many different what I think a dodgy practices its unreal. I wouldn't eat chicken for years after doing installations in chicken farming and processing units. Go back to around the 80s they used chlorine to bleach flour white. I'm not going into the original nuggets or twizzler things. 🤮

isnt most of that stuff what they call mechanically recovered ? like you cut most of the good cuts of meat off the bird, but theres still alot of bits of meat left over on bones and so on, so you use something equivalent to a pressure washer, which rips all the meat off, you take all that, mush it together like youre making a burger from mince,probably add something horrible to bind it together and voila a nugget, twizzler or for those of us older enough to remember them a Bernard Matthews golden drummer (though he used turkey not chicken).

I know friends of mine who went to do summer jobs at local poultry factories whilst at 6th form, and they were called factories not the more pleasant sounding farms (theyre still factories) like today, and it put them off eating supermarket chicken for life.

 

[Mike_P]

https://www.compassioninfoodbusines...er-policies/uk-supermarket-policies-broilers/

 

[oxoman]

isnt most of that stuff what they call mechanically recovered ? like you cut most of the good cuts of meat off the bird, but theres still alot of bits of meat left over on bones and so on, so you use something equivalent to a pressure washer, which rips all the meat off, you take all that, mush it together like youre making a burger from mince,probably add something horrible to bind it together and voila a nugget, twizzler or for those of us older enough to remember them a Bernard Matthews golden drummer (though he used turkey not chicken).

I know friends of mine who went to do summer jobs at local poultry factories whilst at 6th form, and they were called factories not the more pleasant sounding farms (theyre still factories) like today, and it put them off eating supermarket chicken for life.

Back in the day it was processed slurry and by adding stuff then extruding it out coating with batter or bread crumbs and supposedly became food suitable for human consumption. Such was the fallout from BM and twizzlers a lot manufacturers went to using proper chicken and the slurry was used for other stuff. I suspect the really cheap stuff is made from slurry.
Cheers Mike P, I knew about that scheme but I thought they'd tried to tighten things up more since. For general info the chickens used to be sexed and the hens would be fed for 6 to 7 wks to give a 3lb bird and the cocks got an extra wk to make 4lb bird. This is going back to the early 90s when I was contracting. I can still see the turkey catchers in my memory, big well built women who you didn't want to meet on a Saturday night. They would catch as many as they in both hands then stuff them in crates.

 

[presta]

Supermarket chicken can contain 15 - 35% added water. The amount should be shown on the label. This evaporates while cooking.

The maximum allowed added water is 5% without declaration, but there's no limit if it's declared.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meat-products-sell-them-legally-in-england#products-with-added-water

I think the mechanized, process is a bit grimmer than that, the meat goes through a pre packing machine on a conveyor belt and literally gets speared by metal tubes, that just inject the water at pressure,

I've seen them doing it that way manually too, using what looks like a carving fork on the end of a hosepipe.

Cheap chicken breasts can shrink by almost half when cooked on account of the water pumped into them - and yes, it's injected under pressure, along with phosphates as a binder, to make sure the water doesn't leak out.

A false economy to buy the cheap chicken breasts IMHO - even on sticker. I'd be willing to wager that on *cooked* weight, they'd be about the same price per kilo as the more expensive high welfare (and less shrink-prone) ones.

The budget frozen chicken breast I buy is 82% chicken, the premium stuff is 90% chicken, they both have dextrose, salt and water added, but nothing else. The premium stuff is 65% more expensive as sold, and 50% more expensive net of water. Their high welfare fresh chicken doesn't declare any added ingredients, so it can't legally be more than 5% water, which would make it 61% more expensive as sold, and 32% if there's no water.

Chicken breast is 73.4% water anyway, and still 66.6% after grilling.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/composition-of-foods-integrated-dataset-cofid

 

[Reynard]

I can't quote regarding frozen chicken, as I don't buy that. I'm only going on my own personal experiences of buying and cooking fresh poultry at various price points.

Of course, me being me, I buy the damn stuff on yellow sticker anyways.

I haven't bought full price poultry in years.

 

[DRM]

isnt most of that stuff what they call mechanically recovered ? like you cut most of the good cuts of meat off the bird, but theres still alot of bits of meat left over on bones and so on, so you use something equivalent to a pressure washer, which rips all the meat off, you take all that, mush it together like youre making a burger from mince,probably add something horrible to bind it together and voila a nugget, twizzler or for those of us older enough to remember them a Bernard Matthews golden drummer (though he used turkey not chicken).

I know friends of mine who went to do summer jobs at local poultry factories whilst at 6th form, and they were called factories not the more pleasant sounding farms (theyre still factories) like today, and it put them off eating supermarket chicken for life.

Yes, that's exactly right, also they put chicken skins in the cheap sliced chicken, you get to see an awful lot of things that the factories don't want anyone to see when you have to go there to fix their forklift!

 

[oxoman]

They used to chuck the feet in until they realised they could sell them into Chinese restaurant sector at a premium.

 

[slowmotion]

I think skinless breasts shrink more than un-skinned ones because the skinning process removes the fat that reduces shrinkage.

I way well be wrong.