Your grocery store is ripping you off when you buy chicken! (tenderize, drinking water)
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I usually do my grocery shopping at my local Kroger branded grocer. I know a lot of food cost has gone up. However, the cost of chicken has stayed fairly level.
I remember a few years back seeing a new addition to the label. It says that there was a 5% water\salt solution injected into the chicken. I have slowly watched this number creep up. The chicken I bought yesterday stated 18% --- yes pumped up your poultry with salt water. That means for each pound I buy, I am only getting about .82 pounds of actual chicken!
Most people probably don't even notice the small print on the label or even understand why they do that. But I am sure they notice the shrinkage when its cooked!
I haven't seen any labeling of that sort here in the Great White North. Nor have I noticed shrinking chickens when cooked...BUT what ticks me off is the sloppy butchering of chicken parts like legs. They used to actually trim off excess fat and skin. Now it seems to be contest as to how much they can leave on and tuck underneath.
When I get them home and trim off the excess, I probably lose 10-15% of the weight I paid for.
I notice that on chicken packages, but it seems to be most noticeable on frozen chicken. It's irritating, but right now I'm paying $1.88 for boneless skinless chicken breast, so if I'm paying for 18% water, that means I'm really paying $2.22 a pound for the chicken, which is still an acceptable price to me.
I buy poultry/meat from the butcher's case so there's no packaging etc. Just the meat on the scale. I get the chicken breasts, whole chicken, well almost everything in the case. I like to pick what I want and see the "underside" and get no surprises.
I quit buying pre-packaged chicken breast for this reason. Buy at the meat counter if possible. Not only does the added liquid add weight but the packaging will add weight as well. I don't mean the styrofoam but the sponge type material under the chicken which soaks up a lot of the added liquid "flavor enhancer". Next time you buy the pre packaged chicken try weighing it at home. Try weighing the chicken without the packaging to see if it weighs what it stated on the pkg.
According to the Truthful Labeling Coalition the US government estimates that consumers spend over $2 billion per year buying salt water at chicken prices. That’s some expensive salt water we’re shelling out for.
One of the worst offenders: Purdue and Pilgrim’s Pride.
Not mine. I can always get ten-pound bags of frozen leg quarters, never more than 59c a pound -- often less. That's even cheap for salt water. Throw one in a pot of simmering veggies, and season it appropriately for curry, wat, paprika, gumbo, tetrazzini, whatever.
I'm not going to complain about paying 59c a pound for injected salt water, when people I know are paying more than 59c a pound for bottled drinking water, which I get out of the tap free.
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