How To Identify Woody Chicken Breasts. Retailers still sell chickens with moderate cases of woody chicken despite various inspections. The only fix, is to either grind them down and make meatloaf or chicken croquettes, etc.
Chris, from what i’ve read, there is no way to tell by looking at it. Woody breast (wb) is a major myopathy in broilers characterized by hardness of the breast fillet and can be evaluated by human palpation with a severity scale of 0 (normal) to 3 (severe). Now the industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the consequences ranging from squishy fillets known as “spaghetti meat,” because they pull apart easily, to leathery ones known as “woody breast.”
Second, i would complain to your market and if you are so inclined to do so, bring back the woody chicken meat and tell them you are not happy.
Cooking chicken breasts is easy enough, but getting them moist and tender is an entirely different story. Chicken companies spent decades breeding birds to grow rapidly and develop large breast muscles. Chris, from what i’ve read, there is no way to tell by looking at it. It’s not just woody chicken breasts that may cause rubbery results.