Nutritionists have long agreed that white meat (that's mean that comes from anything with fins or feathers) is healthier than red meat. However, if the chicken you're cooking up for dinner has white stripes in it, it might not be as healthy as you think.
Videos by Wide Open Country
White stripes in chicken are actually fat deposits that signal a muscular disorder in the chicken. This disorder is similar to muscular dystrophy in humans.
Factory farmed chickens spend much of their lives in cramped conditions. They are unable to move much and are fed a diet that will make them mature faster. This lifestyle causes this muscular disorder that creates the white stripes in the meat.
Why should you care about this? It affects the nutritional value of your meat. It's important to know that the condition doesn't affect the safety of the meat. However, it can make the fat content as much as 224 percent higher than normal. Saturated fat, like the kind found in meat, raises the consumer's LDL, which is the type of cholesterol that is associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
So, the next time you're shopping, check your chicken for white stripes.
