Why YSK: consuming too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. In my country (USA), the average daily sodium intake is over 3,300mg, exceeding the recommended maximum of 2,300mg. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends an even lower maximum of 2,000mg.
Also: with the rising cost of food, being mindful of additives that increase sell weight is important.
This is a good example of using technically true facts to imply something that isn’t actually representative.
Yes, some chicken is sold with an added salt-water solution. That’s not a secret—it’s disclosed right on the label. But presenting the maximum legal numbers as if they apply to all supermarket chicken is misleading.
“Up to 30%” is the ceiling, not the average. Likewise, “up to 500 mg of sodium” describes heavily enhanced products, not ordinary chicken. Plenty of chicken is sold with no added solution at all, and consumers can choose whichever they prefer simply by reading the packaging.
This post also frames the added solution as though it’s some kind of deceptive adulteration. In reality, it’s added to improve moisture retention and consistency during cooking, and it’s regulated and clearly labeled.
So the takeaway isn’t “supermarkets are secretly selling watered-down chicken.” The takeaway is much less dramatic: read the label. If you want unenhanced chicken, buy unenhanced chicken. If you don’t mind the added solution, buy the enhanced product. Manufacturing practices are not evidence of a conspiracy just because someone cherry-picked the largest numbers they could find.
This is done to avoid botulin toxin from being formed. It’s a much, much bigger issue than the sodium intake
Thats nitrate salts used in sausages, salami and such. The NaCl used in fresh meats is mostly to add weight and supposedly make it more “juicy”.
NaCl does inhibit botulin bacteria too. Nitrate salts have the neat property of changing the color more into deep red territory, which some people tend to prefer.
Here in Denmark how much water is in the chicken is written on the label of the packaging. It is also required to list what ingredients are used to treat the chicken if anything besides water is used.
It is the same here in the states. And it is in fact the case because I’d be the labels on the chickens that I purchase.
I think it’s like that in the whole of Europe.
Must be nice living in a functioning society.
End it. End it all now, Japan, get revenge. Fucking A.
Let’s call it 500mg instead of a half gram because big numbers are always scarier.
Look for “air-chilled chicken” to find chicken that doesn’t have this.
Also some organic brands don’t do this because of the laws around chemical use making chlorine not possible. Brands vary, though.
Farmers markets are another route.
Lol it’s called a brine
Jesus christ.
I’d also add that if you cook those plumped up chicken breasts, they will immediately release all that extra brine into your dish and ruin it. Buy normal-size chicken breasts and resist the urge to go for the “best” weight to price ratio.
Here is a short that tells of what’s going here. This short is also a reaction, from an independent farmer who farms chickens. I think the creator here, FarmingWhileBeige, offers a lot of good insight into what is bad and not bad in our current farming practices as a level headed not batshit crazy maga person.
I got 4 words into your post and immediately went “its FarmingWhileBeige, isnt it” and yeah, you name drop him a short while later.
He’s awesome.
“What is it now…”
and the visceral horror of a woman hammering nails into a chicken and frying it in what, by all appearances, looks to be used motor oil.
Chris also explains the chlorinated chicken myth and daily unpacks MAHA bullshit about food.
I bought a cheaper brand of meat than usual earlier this year. It was so wobbly it could have been a pillow in a water bed. Needless to say the cooked meat was salty but otherwise tasteless with a consistency of pre chewed porridge.
Buy halal meats. Or from an actual butcher.
Butchers are so rare around me and far more expensive. I would love to be able to afford it as it’s a much more delightful experience and the meat is always so much better.
I justify it as “not paying for extra water” after cooking. Lol
Depends on how much more you pay
There’s a butcher shop near my work that also has a fantastic café attached. The meat is all absolutely exquisite looking, but you’re god damned right that its insanely expensive like at least double or triple the price of meat at your typical store. We pretty much only ever buy their in-house pepperoni sticks and even those are around $16 a pound.
As someone with POTS, I for one am okay with sodiummaxxing 😎
This guy gets it
This makes the chicken taste better too.
True, but you can salt or brine the chicken yourself instead of paying more for it.
Covers up the taste of chlorine
Chicken is not chlorinated, that’s more MAHA bullshit.
Yeah i forgot the /s that’s on me. It was supposed to be an NaCl joke but i forgot about the whole chlorinated chicken bullshit.
Eh, in my experience this chicken has a weird texture so not really
Are you talking about the “woody” chicken problem? Because that’s not from this. This is effectively shipping chicken pre-brined.
The texture thing is either from being frozen/thawed too many times or a genetic issue with chickens bred to grow too fast, leading to striated meat.
Possibly. The really water-injected stuff is often frozen so that probably doesn’t help for sure.
LOL, sarcasm … right ? right … ?
I’m sorry you had to learn it so late in life but, salt makes food tasty. You should try some next time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that person never actually ate UNbrind chicken plain in their life, and would be shocked at how bland some chicken can taste
Okay so, since we are being serious : my taste preferences are :
1- adding salt, but also,
2- reducing the amount of water.
So just the same as adding water to milk
Why is this even legal?
Because the people who write the laws own milk companies, and chicken slaughterhouses?
chicken breast
ingredients: 86,7 % chicken
YSK chicken sold in farmer’s markets has often been “plumped” by a farmer’s penis, and injected with a salty solution as well.
lol, I love all the people downvoting me with no idea how many chickens I’ve fucked. So disgusting that you eat that.
Is this part of an elaborate plot to teach your police chief to read?
God no, I’m just a machine that turns whatever I read into the first bad joke that leaks out of my fingers.
