Stripes Aren’t Only On Zebras, You May Find Them On Chicken Breasts Too
by Jocelyn Ngo
Have you ever noticed thin
white stripes between the fibers on your chicken breasts? Have you ever
occasionally noticed a chicken breast that is a little tougher or firmer to
chew? If so, you have stumbled upon chicken breasts coming from chicken with
two different types of muscle disorders.
Since chicken
breasts have increased in popularity, surpassing beef in 2010, due to the
movement to healthier diets, there has been an increase in demand for chicken
breast over
beef and pork, Muscular diseases called White striping and Woody breasts have
recently become a larger concern to consumers, secondary chicken manufacturers,
and chicken growers. White striations laced between muscle fibers in chicken breasts
and unappealing yellowish color with firmness upon compression occur in birds
that are bred to grow at a rapid rate to feed the growing population and demand
for lean meat. For consumers, this chicken muscle disorder affects texture and
nutritional content of the chicken breasts. For secondary chicken manufacturers,
these myopathies negatively affect the processing yields and finished product
quality. For chicken growers, successfully mass producing large chickens from
the traditional 70
days at 3.08lbs to 47 days at 6.24lbs to keep up with demands is negatively
affecting quality of the raw commodity.
Woody breast and White striping usually occur within the
same breast. While white striping affects the appearance and nutritional
content of the chicken breast, woody breast mainly affects texture. Woody breast
can be detected when one compresses force down upon the breast and experience a
hard, “woody”, texture. Frequently, woody breast will show a ridge on the surface of the descending end, a yellowish tint, and a viscous clear fluid on
the chicken.
White
Striping in chickens is a recent concern, with oldest studies dating back to only 2009. Simply put, White striping has
occurred mainly in chickens that have higher growth rates. Because of the
increasingly high demand for this lean meat due to nutritional factors such as
higher protein or price, farmers have chosen to grow breeds with high growth weight and breast
yields. White striping has been characterized with muscle degeneration. Consumers
can mistake this problem as something comparable to meat marbling, like in beef.
White striping is however different because chickens do not normally store fat
between their muscles like beef do.
Because low quality chicken with white striping and woody
breast is being produced at the beginning of the supply chain, all products that
the chicken is being used thereafter are negatively affected. For chicken
product manufacturers, white striping affects texture and product yield. Stiffness
of the muscles and intramuscular striations of fat between the muscles cause
decreased water holding capacity and protein functionality. As a result,
manufacturers who use marinades in processing to add flavor and/or other
functional uses, are resulting in lower meat yields and quality. Lower meat yields,
affect the quality of the product as well as profit. For the consumer, some may
notice a difference in texture after cooking and the obvious appearance of
white striping on a chicken breast. Also, because of white stripping, the
chicken breast may not be as nutritionally beneficial since the fat content in the breast may double while also decreasing the protein content.
White striping and Woody breast are negatively affecting
the poultry industry by misconceiving consumers, affecting processors meat
yields, and deteriorating finished product quality. White striping on chicken
breasts occur when striations parallel to the muscle fibers of fat appear on
the surface of the breast. Although the National Chicken council claims that
this phenomenon only affects a “small percentage of chicken”, a study
sampling 285 breasts found that 95% of chicken breast sampled had white
striping, causing other researchers to look into this problem. Woody Breast
imparts a tough texture and reduction in water holding capacity in chicken
breasts. Spreading this knowledge of these phenomenon will help consumers
choose the right quality of chicken when purchasing their groceries and for
manufacturers be to aware of profit loss for the reduction of yield caused by a
decreased water binding capacity.