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Thread: Question about buying Chicken from the store

  1. #1
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    Default Question about buying Chicken from the store

    I am probably (most likely) too picky about making sure store bought chickens are healthy and CLEAN. I heard on the news that the govt. has changed the rules in checking them before selling them. Now the workers can check 100 chickens per every 60 seconds on the conveyer belt. Now who on GOD'S green earth thinks anyone can make sure a chicken is good to sell by doing 100 in every 60 seconds? Not me for sure. So, to try and make sure I buy healthy chickens, I purchased all natural at about $4.00 per lb. on the breast WO bone (not that I like it that way). Anyway, it was extremely dry when I cooked it??? Any and all suggestions will be appreciated. With todays prices any kind of meat is becoming pretty scarse.

  2. #2
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    Breast meat of any bird is always the driest - no fat on breasts of birds, it's all on the legs and thighs, and that fat layer is what keeps the meat moist and tender. I rarely buy/eat white meat just for that reason. Not much flavor either to me.

  3. #3
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    Well, I raise my own birds, but am not adverse to buying chicken at the store when it is on sale dirt cheap. There's no way I can raise it for less than $2.00/lb and the cost is going up fast.

    I wash it, sniff it, and cook it through. That way, you are pretty safe no matter what.

    Have no idea what went wrong with your chicken breast. How did you cook it?

  4. #4
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    from chicken country.. there is no "clean" chicken from the supermarket. if you ever walked into a poultry processing plant you would never eat chicken from a store again..

  5. #5
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    Hi Alder, it was my usual way....no different and I have never had dry chicken before in my life that I know of. I can only think it may have been the way that it had been fed.

    I am glad I have never been in an industrial/agricultural chicken home. I am so picky. I know it would ruin me for good and I am almost at the only veggies stage. I can't even get fresh fish and I used to fish it for myself at the pier with a pole. I could fill the bucket when I was just a shaver of a kid. Now, my son tells me he has to take his boat out 35 plus miles to get fish. He has a fish finder on his boat too. SAD. It isn't that we have polluted, it is the BIG TRAWlERS that come in and take EVERYTHING he says. That should not be allowed anywhere. Oh well they call it progress I think.

  6. #6
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    I heard from an old timer once to only buy WHOLE birds. If a bird has a tumor on it's thigh, they will still sell the breast meat from that bird. The WHOLE birds are the best of the batch.

    So make chicken noodle soup with the dark meat or find another recipe to use it in.
    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. ...those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
    C.S. Lewis



  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by goatlady View Post
    Breast meat of any bird is always the driest - no fat on breasts of birds, it's all on the legs and thighs, and that fat layer is what keeps the meat moist and tender. I rarely buy/eat white meat just for that reason. Not much flavor either to me.
    Yep!

    Brining the breasts in a salt-herb solution before cooking kicks up the moisture and flavor factors a bit. I try to pull boneless skinless breasts from the fire while the middle is still a bit pink, and then letting the residual heat finish things. Bottom line is that you've gotta pay attention. A minute too long over the heat wrecks everything.
    All best,
    Cyberiot

    Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig. –Robert Heinlein

  8. #8
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    If I use chicken breast, it's usually in stir fry or some other really quick, flash fry type meal. Otherwise, it's on a whole roasted bird, rubbed with a spice/oil mixture to seal in juices.

    I too, prefer the darker meat for most cooking.

  9. #9
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    Thanks everyone. I like the darker meat too, but the price is always so much better on the breast meat. I am trying my best to stretch everything. I did have a meat thermometer given to hubby for father's day for his grilling and I brought it into the kitchen so I can check chicken with it earlier. I think sometimes I overdo it because we are so chicken to eat chicken

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Homesteader View Post
    I heard from an old timer once to only buy WHOLE birds. If a bird has a tumor on it's thigh, they will still sell the breast meat from that bird. The WHOLE birds are the best of the batch.

    So make chicken noodle soup with the dark meat or find another recipe to use it in.
    this is true. the cleanest safest bird is a whole bird.. the smaller the cut,the more likely it came of a less than perfect bird..i am trying to be nice here..

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