A Texas mom was in for a wild surprise when she prepared dinner one night and discovered that her raw chicken, instead of staying together, broke into stringy, spaghetti-like pieces!
Alesia Cooper, a mother from Irving, Texas, couldn’t believe her eyes when the chicken breast she was washing started falling apart in her hands. Confused and shocked, she quickly took to social media to share the strange experience.
“I think it’s that fake meat,” she wrote in her viral Facebook post, which got people talking and even convinced some to consider going vegan. The bizarre discovery definitely wasn’t what Alesia had on the menu that night!
On March 21, Alesia posted a photo of the disturbing chicken, which looked like it was rebelling against its future on her family’s dinner plates. She explained, “I been debating on posting this, but since I had to see it, so do y’all.”
The post also included an image of the chicken breast shredding into spaghetti-like strands, and Alesia added, “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 also shared that she had bought the chicken breast from the discount supermarket Aldi and joked, “lol I think it’s that fake meat but I’m not sure anyways… I ain’t made chicken off the bone since.”
Her post immediately caught the attention of online users, with many jumping into the comments to offer their own theories on the strange chicken. Some people believed the chicken wasn’t real at all and might have been created in a lab!
One commenter claimed, “That’s lab-grown chicken. It’s the new way they’re making chicken because of bird flu and shortages. Last year, they announced they could make chicken in a lab, and that’s what’s in stores now.”
Another person simply wrote, “GMO lab meat,” while someone else said, “Fake. I don’t buy it anymore.”
But not everyone believed the chicken was fake. One user offered a more reasonable explanation, saying, “It’s not lab-grown meat or 3D printed. It’s real chicken. The issue is that producers pump their chickens with growth hormones so they grow too fast.”
It turns out, Alesia’s spaghetti-like chicken might be part of a bigger problem with modern poultry. According to The Wall Street Journal, this weird stringy chicken is referred to as “spaghetti meat.” It’s a result of breeding chickens to grow larger breasts at a faster rate to produce more meat per bird—and of course, more profit for companies.
“There is proof that these abnormalities are associated with fast-growing birds,” explained Dr. Massimiliano Petracci, a professor of agriculture and food science at the University of Bologna, Italy.
Although “woody breast” (hard and chewy meat) and “spaghetti meat” sound unappealing, industry experts assure that they’re safe to eat. But this rapid growth does cause pain for the chickens, whose large bodies often become too heavy for their legs to support.
According to the National Chicken Council, chickens raised for meat, known as broilers, have been growing much faster in recent years. In 2000, the average broiler chicken weighed around 5 pounds after 47 days. But by 2023, chickens were still raised in 47 days, yet now they weighed over 6.5 pounds!
Looking further back, the difference is even more shocking. In 1925, it took 112 days for a chicken to grow to just 2.5 pounds. This dramatic change reflects the increasing demand for white meat, particularly chicken breasts, over the past century.
Dr. Michael Lilburn, a professor at Ohio State University’s Poultry Research Center, told The Washington Post, “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 also pointed out, “What people don’t realize is that it’s consumer demand that’s forcing the industry to adjust.” He explained that while some people are raising concerns about where their food comes from, most Americans are still more concerned about the price of their chicken than how it’s produced.
In response to these concerns, some fast-food chains and grocery stores are starting to demand meat from slow-growing chickens. According to The New York Times, these companies argue that giving chickens more time to grow will lead to happier birds and better-tasting meat.
Meanwhile, Alesia’s post continued to spark reactions from people online. One person asked, “It looks like worms! What are they feeding us?” Another commenter shared, “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 users even recommended shopping elsewhere for better quality chicken. “You’ll get humanely raised and better quality chicken from a local butcher or co-op,” one person suggested.
For others, the sight of spaghetti chicken was enough to make them rethink their diet. One user exclaimed, “I’ll go vegan!! Too much lab food around,” while another said, “This is why we’re thinking about going pescatarian.”
Alesia’s post did more than just gross people out—it got them talking about what’s really going on with the food we eat. From lab-grown meat theories to concerns about how chickens are raised, it’s clear that something as simple as cooking dinner can lead to some pretty big questions.
