Mom shares shocking photo of chicken breast turned into spaghetti

The Wall Street Journal reports that, along with the tough, chewy meat called “woody breast,” “spaghetti meat” is supposedly the result of breeding to make large-breasted chickens grow faster.

So there’s more meat per bird, and more profit can be made.

“There’s evidence that these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds,” Dr. Massimiliano Petracci, a professor of agriculture and food science at the University of Bologna in Italy, explains to the WSJ.

“Woody breast” and “spaghetti meat” may sound ominous, but eating them won’t hurt you, according to industry experts.

But this will harm the chickens, whose large bodies are too big for their tiny legs to support.

Plump Chickens

According to figures released by the National Chicken Council, broiler chickens (bred for meat) are growing much faster than before. In 2000, the average bird was marketed at 47 days old, weighing 2.27 kg. In 2023, the average chicken is still marketed at 47 days old, but plump chickens now weigh 3 kg.
Comparing these figures with those from almost a century ago, in 1925, it took 112 days for broiler chickens to reach a market weight of 1.1 kg.