Dark meat to light meat

30/08/2005 - Is it a breast or is it a dark thigh? A poultry professor has
found a way to turn dark chicken meat into a more valuable white meat.

University of Georgia poultry scientist Daniel Fletcher said he can make "a
silk purse" out of the underused dark meat of the chicken, by transforming
it into the more desirable white meat.

"Americans prefer the breast meat," Fletcher said. "Dark meat evolved into
being a by-product of the chicken industry."

Dark meat gets its colour from myoglobin, which plays a key role in
transporting oxygen and shows up in the muscles an animal uses most often.
Since chickens rarely fly but walk instead, the leg meat is dark and wing
and breast meat is white. Using a centrifuge and other extraction methods,
Fletcher is able to transform it into white meat by removing its fat content
and colour.

"We grind the meat up, add excess water and make essentially meat slurry,"
he stated in a University of Georgia announcement. "We then centrifuge it at
a high speed, which breaks up the meat. What settles out are the raw,
extracted layers."

Out of the process he gets three distinct layers of extracts: fat, water and
meat.

When the modified dark meat is cooked, it looks incredibly similar to breast
meat, he claims. Unmodified thigh meat when cooked is much darker than his
creation.

The prepackaged grilled chicken can be used to top salads and could be made
specifically for restaurants, he said. If average consumers took it home and
let it thaw before cooking, they would be left with a puddle of water and
meat gunk.

Fletcher admits that the market opportunity for his dark-meat project "is
probably not now". Yesterday's scraps that demand high prices now are ribs,
Buffalo wings and hamburger meat, he argues.

"The dark-meat project is partly a training project for students," Fletcher
said. "We use it to teach students how to take apart and create new foods."
The same path to glory could eventually raise the leftover dark-meat
portions of a chicken to a more favoured spot on the menu.

"Food shortages will occur again," he stated. "It's a political issue, not
an agricultural issue. It's always nice to have potential ways to keep the
food market healthy and nutritious. This project gives us a better way to
utilize dark meat, instead of just sending it to other countries."


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Help with dry chicken breast
    ... Sunday we BBQ'd 2 whole chickens that we first spatchcocked. ... breast meat was a little dry. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)
  • Re: 29 cents a POUND!
    ... and fat to meat ratio than average priced chicken. ... Just what do you think caused the glut of legs and thighs, breast ... contained in the poultry consumed. ... It's not true that chickens are fed hormones. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)
  • Re: What to smoke first?
    ... slow cooking won't tenderize the meat like it does with a pork shoulder. ... I also disagree with BOB that whole chickens are hard to smoke for good ... the white meat and dark meat done together. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)
  • Re: Todays Garfield
    ... costing a pound, which was good value if you prefer 'red' to 'white' ... meat. ... White and dark for me also. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Does fat add flavor? (was: Apologies to all.)
    ... these days governments are pushing the meat producers to ... Dry as a popcorn fart. ... IMO you are over cooking your roasted birds so they dry out. ... chickens are welcome. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)