Reader Sean is the most recent reader to purchase food at a major “big box” store, find it unacceptable, and send us a picture.
Sean writes:
Early this month (July), my wife purchased a fried chicken (already prepared) from the Walmart Deli department located in Paola, KS. When we opened the packaging, the first thing I noticed was a few chicken feathers on the OUTSIDE of the breading on a leg and thigh. We chose not to eat the chicken and disposed of it because we felt it might have been handled in an unsanitary fashion.Usually, I’d expect to find something like this mixed in and fried into the breading – not just laying on the outside. Needless to say, it’s curbed my appetite for fried chicken.
I contacted the Walmart and asked to speak to a manager. The person I spoke to told me to bring my receipt in and they’d exchange the chicken, but by that time, I wasn’t really interested in another bird. They didn’t offer me any other option.
I contacted Walmart corporate, and left feedback on their web form but no one has contacted me.
Before anyone starts to wonder what the big deal is over a couple of feathers, this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten bad product from this particular Walmart. I’ve gotten home and found that I had bought moldy flour tortillas or hamburger with tooth-busting, pebble-sized bone fragments in it. I’m just mad enough to vent about it now. It’s a small town, with one other grocery store and otherwise, not a lot of shopping choices.
All we can say is, “Ew.” Well, “Ew” and “The odds that Walmart is using proper food safety procedures are pretty slim if your cooked food has uncooked chicken feathers stuck to the outside.”
(Photo:Sean)
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Again, a lot of people are missing the point…
Fact: The OP never said it was the feather that specifically grossed him out.
Fact: Improperly handled chicken can make you very, very ill.
Fact: The presence of a feather outside the breading could indicate that proper food preparation procedures were not followed.
Individual comments aside, this issue has nothing to do with being a “food wuss”, and everything to do with wanting our food to be prepared in a sanitary manner.
@Smoking Pope: OR it could be that the feather was missed through both the machine and hand plucking phases of he operation, the chicken put through the vat breaing machine and cooked with the feather sticking out side of the breading since feathers dont hold on to flour or breading.
If the feathers where white, I could understand it then, but if they have a slightly yellow or clear color to them, its very likely they where cooked with the meat.
as for sanitary manner… well you will never have that till you do it yourself. Dont see any of you raising chickens now.
@Falconfire: Yep, which is why I was careful to bold the word could in my post.
Dare I say “That’s what you get for eating fried food at WalMart!” ?
BLAME CHINA!
I know most people don’t read this low in the comments, but I believe the point Sean was trying to make was that if there were feathers above the breading, there may have been some cross-contamination between the raw chickens being plucked and the cooked ones being put out on the shelf. That could be cause for concern.
And on the issue of moldy cheese, you guys have seen that diagram in high school textbooks of the moldy orange, right? The one showing that the mold you can see is only the reproductive structures of the mold (the spore producing part) and the actual body of the mold, the thin thread-like parts, actually worm their way all through the fruit? Cut off the reproductive parts if you want, but you’re still eating mold.
I understand some people are still okay with that.
I’m not satisfied with the complaint right now. The OP says he wasn’t “offered another option” aside from the bird exchange. Did he ask?
Also, people are very afraid of mold. I have to admit, I don’t find it very tasty but I don’t find it particularly horrifying either.
Wow, you people are fast. 50 people made my point before I could type it.
@LTLBBYNTHN: Yes, moldy cheese does have “mold threads” because everything with mold has mold threads. Mold is a thread. The fuzz you see are the spore producing organs, and the spores themselves.
well, at least you know that it came from a bird, and not a stray dog something
Many rural areas lack decent grocery stores. Walmart ran many of them out. Or the store they do have carries next to nothing at 7-11 prices. I really feel for people stuck in these situations.
If someone does live in a rural area they should look into getting meat directly. We have a 1/4 of beef coming in on Friday and will probably order a half hog this fall. We happen to have a grocery chain that carries meat from better local operations so I get chickens there. I won’t buy Tyson anymore. Too many gross surprises even in a pack of plain uncooked chicken wings.
Find a small local meat locker who does full butchering or find a farmer who has chickens for sale.
Personally if a business screws me once they don’t get a second chance.
Food being fresh and wholesome is so important that I can’t imagine going back to a store if you’ve had a bad experience with quality in the past.
I’m the Sean in Paola and I’m responding to some of the comments to the chicken feather story I submitted on this site.
I grew up on a farm, and I’m perfectly aware that birds that are machines processed don’t always pluck all the feathers. I also know what diseases chickens carry, and what implications raw feathers on my meat mean to my family.
My point is that the feathers (there were more than one, on more than one piece of chicken) were all on the outside of the breading, not on the meat, not mixed into the breading… the conclusion here is that the area where these cooked pieces were processed and/or packaged were likely contaminated. The feather, as pictured, doesn’t look to me like it’s been cooked – but it does look like it’s absorbed surface oil from the breading. I didn’t want myself or my kids to possibly get sick so we tossed it.
I know there are all kinds of things we don’t want to think about in our food. Everything from rat droppings to insects and worse. But most of those are processed in some way and cooked.
We bought a prepared chicken because it was the July 4th holiday, and I didn’t want my wife to have to cook. We were going to be busy, and the whole point of prepared food is convenience.
My wife chose to shop at Walmart because she had to pick up several things that weren’t available at the other grocery store. Instead of making a trip to two places, she shopped at one because it was convenient because of the holiday.
As is if any of that was anyone’s business, or that we have to explain our habits but a lot of you are quick to jump on your soapbox and appear wiser than you really are.
@The Nature Boy:
Beat me to it…darn.
Soap and water.
I just wanted to say that you who say it’s not a big deal must live on your computers and not check the news. Birds are one of the most unsanitary animals out there and with things like Avian flu, one can’t be too safe. Good for you sir for voicing your opinion about this disgusting incident! I avoid Wal-Mart at all costs. I appreciate your honesty and hope these negative comments don’t encourage you to do otherwise.
“It’s like a party in my mouth, and everyone’s throwing up.”
@Mark 2000: Exactly!
My parents used to bring home precooked chicken from the super market when they were working late. Couldn’t stand it. It was bland, somewhat cold, and totally unimpressive.
That’s what you get for giving your business to Walmart. The bigger a company gets, lower the quality gets.
Walmart sells CRAP!
Always low quality… Always.
Mold isn’t natural on all ‘real’ cheese. If there’s mold in a bag of shredded chedder, it needs to go in the trash. If it’s on a big block, in just one place, and wasn’t there yesterday, then, if you’re bold, you can cut off a big chunk around the mold and eat the rest.
I have never bought food at a Super Walmart, though I did go to one in New Hampshire a few times. The produce is a big turn off. I liked to buy beer there, though.
If you can’t afford to buy pre-made fried chicken at the ‘other’ grocery store, then buy some friggin rice and beans and carrots and onions and cook for yourself. No wonder poor people are so fat in this country.. and no wonder fat people are so poor. A whole chicken is a pretty good deal, and if you roast it on Sunday afternoon you can eat the leftovers on a weeknight when you don’t have time to cook. And I’ve never had more than a few pinfeathers in a whole bird before.
HOW BIG IS WAL-MART THIS IS MIND-BOGGLING??
HOW BIG IS WAL-MART?
I was blown away by these mind-boggling statistics on Wal-Mart!
1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th)than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy including Winn-Dixie).
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.
11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store.(Ear th’s population is approximately 6.5 billion).
12. 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.
Just a friendly reminder from your local vegan:
Your chicken is on average only 7 weeks old when it is run through an electrocution tank.
[www.sciencenews.org]
Also, did you know that rennet is used in the production of cheese? Rennet is essentially young calf stomach ground up to coagulate the milk. Yuck!
[en.wikipedia.org]
Yum Yum Feathers!!!!
“Just a friendly reminder from your local vegan:
Your chicken is on average only 7 weeks old when it is run through an electrocution tank.”
Just a friendly reminder from someone who is aware that humans are omnivores:
For every animal you don’t eat, I’m going to eat three.
(sorry, I don’t really mean that, I saw it on a shirt and I think it’s hilarious).
It’s a DEAD animal. What do you expect? Humans are so stupid. A feather bothers you but the fact that you are eating blood on bones doesn’t? Jesus.
@SJActress: That’s like saying for every kid you don’t molest i’m going to molest three. Really doesn’t help at all.