A Texas mom got a huge surprise while preparing dinner when her chicken turned into stringy pieces that looked like spaghetti!
Alesia Cooper, from Irving, Texas, was just getting dinner ready for her kids when something weird happened. She was washing the raw chicken breast, but instead of staying solid, it started to fall apart into long, thin strands in her hands. Confused and grossed out, Alesia quickly jumped on Facebook to share what had happened.
“I think it’s that fake meat,” she wrote in her now-viral post, which has people online buzzing about going vegan. It turns out, pasta was definitely not on the menu that night!
On March 21, Alesia shared a photo that left many people disturbed. The picture showed the raw chicken breast literally shredding into spaghetti-like strands, refusing its fate of becoming dinner. Along with the picture, Alesia wrote: “I been debating on posting this but since I had to see it so do yall.”
In the post, she explained what happened: “I was cooking my kids’ dinner a couple of weeks ago, and was cleaning my meat like I normally do. But when I went back to start cooking, it turned into this.” She even mentioned where she got it from:
“lol I think it’s that fake meat but I’m not sure anyways…I ain’t made chicken off the bone since.” She had bought it from the budget supermarket Aldi, and it left her seriously questioning her food choices.
The post blew up, and people on the internet quickly jumped in with their thoughts. Some users were convinced the chicken was fake or even grown in a lab.
“That’s lab-grown chicken,” one commenter insisted. “It’s a new way they make chicken because of the bird flu and shortages. Last year, they said they found a way to make chicken in a lab and that’s what’s in stores now.”
“GMO lab meat,” another person simply commented.
One user flat-out refused to buy it anymore, saying, “Fake, I don’t buy it anymore.”
But some had more reasonable explanations. “It’s not lab-grown meat or 3D printed,” one user said. “It comes from real chickens. The problem is when greedy chicken producers force-feed their chickens growth hormones so they grow way too fast.”
Turns out, Alesia’s stringy chicken may be a sign of a bigger issue. The Wall Street Journal reported that this problem, known as “spaghetti meat,” happens when chickens are bred to grow larger and faster. Along with another issue called “woody breast” (where the meat becomes hard and chewy), it’s all part of an effort to make chickens bigger to increase profits.
Dr. Massimiliano Petracci, a professor of agriculture and food science at the University of Bologna in Italy, told WSJ, “There is proof that these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds.”
While the thought of eating “spaghetti meat” or “woody breast” sounds unpleasant, experts say it’s not harmful to people. However, it does hurt the chickens, as their bodies become too heavy for their legs to handle, causing them pain.
The National Chicken Council revealed that today’s broiler chickens, which are raised for meat, grow much faster than they used to. In 2000, chickens went to market at 47 days old and weighed about 5 pounds. But in 2023, those same 47-day-old chickens now weigh over 6.5 pounds!
The difference is even crazier if you go back nearly 100 years. In 1925, it took 112 days for a chicken to grow to just 2.5 pounds. This rapid growth is because of the increasing demand for white meat, especially chicken breasts.
Dr. Michael Lilburn, a professor at Ohio State University’s Poultry Research Center, said, “If people keep eating more and more chicken, chickens will probably have to get even bigger…We’ll have to increase the proportion of breast meat in each bird, too.”
Lilburn pointed out that it’s consumer demand driving this change: “What people don’t realize is that it’s consumer demand that’s forcing the industry to adjust.” He explained that while a small group is asking important questions about food production, most Americans just want cheap chicken and don’t really care where it comes from.
But some fast-food chains and grocery stores are starting to listen. According to The New York Times, they’re demanding chicken from slower-growing birds, arguing that giving chickens more time to grow results in happier animals and better-tasting meat.
While all this was happening online, Alesia’s post kept stirring reactions. Some people were straight-up grossed out by the chicken’s spaghetti-like appearance.
“It looks like worms!” one person exclaimed. “What are they feeding us?”
Another user chimed in: “I got some like that a while ago. It looked weird on the bottom. Things just don’t seem as fresh as they used to.”
Some suggested skipping the grocery store altogether: “You’ll get humanely raised and better-quality chicken from a local butcher or co-op. I recommend going there instead.”
Others were so disturbed by the chicken that they were ready to change their diets completely. One user declared, “I’ll go vegan!! Too much lab food around,” while another commented, “This is why we are thinking about going pescatarian.”
Alesia’s experience with the stringy chicken didn’t just ruin her dinner plans—it sparked a big conversation about what we’re really eating and whether or not we’re okay with it. Whether it’s lab-grown, pumped full of hormones, or just plain weird, people are starting to ask: what’s really going on with our food?