Chicken, lean meat dubbed by fitness addicts is also one of the most popular meats in the world. In France, poultry consumption per capita increased from 12 kilos per capita in 1970 to more than 25 kilos today.

To meet a growing demand for consumption, poultry are often intensively raised in the factory, and this is reflected in the quality of the meat, which streaks with white fibers, the same ones that we are trying today. almost always remove with a knife before cooking our chicken breasts. It is these fibers that are now singled out by scientists.

Chickens with meat three times fat and less nutritious

Several studies have tended to warn consumers about the consumption of these farm-raised meats that are streaked with white.

Researchers specializing in poultry production at the Universities of Texas and Arkansas (USA) published in Poultry Science in 2016 that of 285 chickens tested, 96% showed white streaks, resulting in at 224% more fat.

Same story in February 2016, at the University of Bologna, Italy, this time. Researchers in the agri-food sciences spoke in the Italian Journal of Animal Science, concluding that chicken fillets with white streaks contained 2.53% fat (compared to 0.78% for streak-free fillets, a factor greater than 3) and 20.9% protein (versus 22.9%).

Animals in poor health?

Worse, according to the CIWF , the Compassion in World Farming Organization, these famous white streaks that are distinguished on meat would be a harbinger "of an animal with disorders muscular, linked to its excessively rapid growth ".

Animals raised in these conditions suffer from various health problems alert association: lameness, respiratory or cardiovascular diseases ...

Early slaughter denounced by associations

"In France, 80% of chickens are bred intensively," she says. "Chickens are genetically selected to grow very quickly, in overcrowded farms."

And we cut them off earlier and earlier: in less than six weeks, for a weight between 1.8 and 2 kilos. "It's twice as fast as 30 years ago," says CIWF.

The NGO has also published a sensitization video on the subject, with the aim of "ending industrial farming".

On the consumer side, the only way to protect yourself is to check the origin of the meat via labeling, rearing conditions and, of course, at the time of purchase, to observe the raw flesh to avoid ingestion of meat that is too fat.