Why is there so much water produced when cooking processed chicken?
Cooked a 2 kg bag of frozen thighs and there must have been close to 250ml or more water/juice produced.
This tends to reflect I am paying chicken prices for a large quantity of water.
This sound correct? best chicken to buy to avoid this?
pamellie,
Apr 10, 12:36am
This is common with fresh chicken too. Cooked 10kg fresh chicken breast not so long ago, ended up with 6. 5kg cooked meat. Poured a heap of liquid off it.
You have to wonder if they pump them up with water before they knock them off.
buzzy110,
Apr 10, 12:52am
Not sure of the exact science but when you freeze food, ice crystals accumulate and cells burst releasing liquid (or something like that) so there is always more free water when food is defrosted than when it is first frozen.
Also haven't any of you noticed that when buying fresh chicken the fresher it is the less liquid there is in the bag or liquid pad when you take it out. This is not water. All living things need water to survive and the water is distributed in the flesh of all living creatures via the bloodstream. This liquid is what makes the meat succulent. Meat that has had all the liquid taken out is called jerky.
Admittedly they do pump water into pork so if you go and buy your cheap, inhumanely reared, feed on who knows what, imported pork it will also be pumped full of liquids with who knows what in it.
Now what would you rather cook. A fresh succulent piece of meat or a dried up piece of jerky?
superdave0_13,
Apr 10, 1:42am
If it is being processed into other things such as ham or bacon then it is pumped with brine which contains water.
Fresh cuts of pork do are not pumped with water sorry!
Both Pork and chicken naturally have a higher water content than say sheep meat or beef hence the higher food safety risks associated with them.
uli,
Apr 10, 1:58am
Yes they do. Not directly - but indirectly. There is also a lot of liquid stored in the body of commercially raised chickens. They get killed at about 45 days - mine are like sparrows then - and while I realize they are hybrid chooks that grow so fast that they need to get killed when they are - as their leg bones will break if they get any heavier - it doesn't make for happy eating on my part ...
The best chicken is of course the one that you rear in your backyard - if that is not an option then try an organic one - but refrain from buying the "corn-fed" variety if you can.
Anything that comes from Tegal or Inghams I would treat with suspicion. Check out the price of commercial chicken feed by the 40kg sack - then ask yourself how that supermarket chicken can be so cheap ... .
uli,
Apr 10, 2:02am
Here is an article you might want to read from May 2003 - so not really new news - but were you aware of it?
http://www.thisislondon.co. uk/news/article-11996697-supermar ket-pork-pumped-with-water. do
st_allie,
Apr 10, 2:11am
I prefer to buy dry cured bacon these days from the butcher. .
i notice that supermarket bacon just oozes a huge amount of water in the pan. . I know 10 years ago this wasn't happening with bacon. . it seems to be a recent defect.
uli,
Apr 10, 2:16am
Hmmm - all this google-ing is making me think that there is much more out there than I ever realized - having my own meat ...
I've never been keen on raising chickens lol. . I'm a bit lazy and chickens seem high maintenance... I do buy eggs from farmgates though. .
rog.e,
Apr 10, 4:21am
I always buy fresh Corn-fedfree-range chickens.
Can someone tell me what is wrong with the 'dorn-fed' part please?
Corn in NZ wquals maize and is not GE modified grain.
V
superdave0_13,
Apr 10, 4:33am
Nothing. . Eat it and be merry,
The corn feed would not be sourced from N. Z
The term "corn fed free range" does not actually mean anything. It's a marketing ploy.
rog.e,
Apr 10, 4:38am
If the corn-fed free-range means 'nothing then it is an illegal labellling.
I believe that it does mean what it says. V
superdave0_13,
Apr 10, 5:05am
Well i had pop corn at the movies the other night and cornflakes this morning for breakfast. . does that make me corn fed?
The term "free range" is open to interpretation as well as different companies farming different animals define the term in different ways.
It can mean that the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner.
It could also mean that the animals raised for their meat only need to have access to the outside in order to be labelled free-range.
zorrodog,
Apr 10, 1:00pm
as regards water from chickens, here is the answer I processed poultry for over 20 years and to bring the temperature down quickly while processing the birds go into a icewater bath. The warm bird sucks up the cold water and depending on the time emmersed it can usually take up 5 to 7 % of its body weight. That is why during storage defrosting or cooking the water leaks out.
uli,
Apr 10, 4:09pm
That is right. However there are also "enhanced" products available - while we all hope it is only happening in Europe and the US - who knows really where our meat comes from and was been done to it? (Has anyone ever figured out what the term "tenderbasting" really means? - it has certainly nothing to do with "basting").
The import meat statistics were an eye opener for me as to what we actually import and consume in this country.
uli,
Jan 18, 9:42am
Unfortunately there is GE corn approved for animal food in NZ - which is why Inghams had a little problem recently by not correctly stating that they used GE corn to feed their chickens. Monsanto has also applied that this corn is also registered as "safe" for human consumption "in case it enters the human food chain by mistake". This is going on since 3 years already!
So that would be one reason why I wouldn't eat corn fed chickens. There is another which is that corn has the highest level of Omega6 fatty acids of all grains - so chickens fed on mostly corn will be very deficient in Omega3's which are very important for our health. Most of our food is now very much deficient in Omega3's and there are many "modern" illnesses connected to this.
While the research is ongoing and more comes to light about our grain eating and grain feeding - I am very much in favour of a free range grass fed chicken (which can be as high in Omega3 as a wild caught salmon)- rather than one stuffed up on cheap grains (which corn is).
The corn-fed chicken craze is basically an advertising ploy to make you think that if they write that boldy on it - then it must be good for you. Sadly it is the opposite.
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.