There's a new type of chicken you can get from the shops, but it's not as appetising as you may think.
You may love a bit of roast chicken and potatoes for dinner, or even some crispy fried chicken wings, but have you ever tried spaghetti chicken?
If you haven't, be prepared to be put off eating chicken for the next couple of days, at least.
Mother Alesia Cooper bought some chicken breasts from a well-known supermarket chain to cook for her kids.
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The Texas-based mum was simply washing the chicken when it started to disintegrate in her hands, becoming stringy and falling apart.
She posted her experience on Facebook, describing it as 'fake meat' and claiming that she hadn't 'made chicken off the bone since' the incident.
The post was then shared on X, where it went viral, and many of the social media site's users helped to clarify what had happened exactly.
This occurrence is actually called 'spaghetti meat', or in this case, 'spaghetti chicken', and it happens to a small percentage of farmed poultry.
'Spaghetti meat' is actually a result of breeding, prompting big-breasted chickens to grow faster.
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Essentially, when chickens are grown to abnormally large size in such a short period of time, the tissues that make up its muscles don't receive enough oxygen, causing fibres to separate and appear how they do in the photo above.
Despite how weird and gross it may look though, it's actually safe to eat, albeit a lot more chewy.
When chickens are grown for meat, they are known as broiler chickens, and broiler chickens now are grown twice as fast as they were 50 years ago, according to the National Chicken Council.
For reference, the average chicken goes to market at day 47 today at a weight of 6.56 lbs (2.98 kg), whereas in 2000, it still went to the market at day 47, but at a weight of 5.03 lbs (2.28 kg).
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If we roll the clocks back almost 100 years to 1925, it took 112 days for a chicken to reach 2.5 lbs (1.13 kg).
This huge jump can be attributed to genetic selection of birds that grow faster and more plump, so there is more meat per chicken and more money per sale.
Researchers termed chicken breast fillets that can be pulled apart in a noodle-like fashion as 'spaghetti meat', and it has started appearing on social media since 2015.
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According to the Wall Street Journal, four to five percent of breast meat samples in 2019 were found to be 'spaghetti meat'.
Dr Massimiliano Petracci, a professor of agriculture and food science at the University of Bologna, explained to the WSJ: "There is proof that these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds."
Due to this unwanted trend, companies such as Whole Foods and Wendy's in the US are going back to basics and using slower-grown chickens.
People who saw photos of 'spaghetti meat' shared their disgust in the comments on X, as one user said: "I look for this every time I clean and cook chicken. I haven’t experienced it yet, but if I ever do, it’s going straight in the trash."
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Another posted: "Oh hell nawl. I was planning on cooking chicken breast for dinner tomorrow. Now idk."
A third commented: "That’s why you go to a fresh meat market/store instead of these big corp stores."
It's also worth looking out for 'woody breast', which is when a chicken is tough and leathery - which is also caused by the same factors that cause 'spaghetti meat'.
Featured Image Credit: Facebook/Getty Stock ImagesTopics: Science, Health, Weird, Social Media, Viral