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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Threw up in my mouth just a little there.
Well, I’ll be working through lunch today. Thanks for that.
Though I must ask, if you keep finding horrible, disgusting problems with the food you buy at a particular store, why do you keep buying it?
Go to the other grocery store, man! Unless it’s possible the other option is *worse*?!
If it is, I am very afraid.
Um guess what, a LOT of fried chicken has feathers on it. Mechanical or hand plucked home killed or bought from a store, its not easy to get ALL the feathers out, and very often a few are left.
Jesus people get over yourselves here and learn about your food. There is nothing wrong with eating a few feathers. They are cooked in oil which would have killed anything they might have had on them, and its not going to like kill you.
I bet your the same type of person who throws away a whole thing of cheese if only a tiny little section gets moldy.
And people honestly wonder why we are so sick these days. Christ we ate DIRT as kids. a few feathers are not going to kill you.
He mentions an often overlooked point:
While most of us just think “that’s what you get for grocery shopping at Wal-mart”, there’s a lot of places in the country where Wal-mart’s put most / all of the other grocery stores out of business and now they’re the only option…
Somebody should tell Wal-mart that adding a pound of feathers to your fried chicken does not make it the “Lite” variety…
Isn’t there some old adage about getting what you pay for?
Am I the only one who sees a problem with the quote, “This isn’t the first time this has happened to me at Wal Mart…”
ew… i really wish all those walmart shoppers would realize that they are getting exactly what they pay for. crap. food, electronics, shoes, tools, etc.
just because a company’s logo is on a product doesnt mean it is the same manufacturer.
Feathers… Umm, so? It happens, just pull them off. Hell, at least you can be more assured that it was real chicken.
Dated a girl whose family would avoid any meats that had bone/blood visible.
Just eat the freaking food!!
@Falconfire: If you get a beak in your scrambled eggs, would you pick it out or say it just added some bonus crunchy texture?
It’s true we’re a bit overzealous in the bacterial annihilation department, but there’s something to be said for proper food preparation.
Um…
QUIT BUYING FOOD THERE!
Moldy tortillas? Ok I’d give them another chance.
Bones in hamburger? I’d be done with any kind of non-prepackaged food there.
Fool me thrice…
I too grew up in a small town with just 2 grocery stores. There are options.
@Falconfire: You only throw away a section of cheese if that part gets moldy instead of the whole thing?
Yea, I was almost going to listen to your shpeel about feathers on chicken but nevermind.
1) Newsflash: Chickens are birds. Birds have feathers. Ever plucked poultry before? I have. It’s damn near impossible to get every single feather off.
2) That said, I can see why the OP found the chicken unappetizing. I’ll buy prepackaged goods from WalMart (cereal, soda, etc.) I haven’t seen any trouble with the meat or dairy at my local WalMart, but the produce there usually looks bad enough to turn me off from their meat and dairy also. I buy my meat, dairy, and produce from a real grocery store.
DON’T BUY FOOD AT WALMART. Problem solved. There’s ONE other grocery store in your little town? So GO TO THAT ONE.
I once got half a heart that had been fried with the piece of chicken. I was probably like 10, so me and my friends thought it was pretty cool. My friend’s mom of course did not, and I remember getting a ton of free chicken after that.
That has nothing to do with this story, but since he can’t seem to learn not to buy stuff from that particular store he keeps getting shafted at, nothing else is really necessary to add.
At least you know it was once a real chicken. Those fried chickens they sell at any grocery store are nasty, scary things. Oven fried, or even frying it yourself in a big pot with vegetable oil is healthier and tastes much better.
I was also wondering the same thing. I only buy groceries from a grocery store. No problems yet.
If that happened where I live, I would move. Yes, that’s how much I hate Wal-Mart.
@Moosehawk: i’ve often cut off a bit of mold off of a block of cheese or a loaf of bread and kept using it, as long as it’s just a tiny bit of it. I wouldn’t blame someone for chucking it, but it doesn’t spell the end for the food.
I still don’t get why people still shop at Wal Mart. Sure the prices are cheaper but at what cost. In order to keep their prices lower than their competition they have to cut somewhere and people always seem shocked that they aren’t getting top quality products. Stop shopping there and things will change, but people are too focused on getting the best price that they don’t seem to care what they are sacrificing for it. Read the book Wal-Mart Effect which has complete details about the whole situation. For example, the salmon for $4 a pound is from a fish farm in Chile where the fish are fed medications to stimulate their growth and swim around in a pen with barely enough space for themselves. In case you didn’t see where that was leading, they swim in their own feces.
While I’m here I mine as well share my chicken story.
I once bought Tyson pre-cooked chicken strips. So I cooked it up in the toaster oven like always. Well, when I pulled it out, it felt kind of unusual so I cut into it and noticed all the chicken was raw. I couldn’t eat chicken for a while after that because I was really close to biting into that …
@Falconfire: You’re full of shit if you’re saying you’d eat a fried chicken you bought that had some feathers sticking out of it.
People understand chickens have feathers dude…they just don’t want them decorating their fuckin’ fried chicken like candles on a cake.
@Moosehawk:
YES! When a hard cheese gets moldy you can just remove the moldy part! For the most part even consuming this mold won’t make you sick, it just tastes like…well…mold. Which most of us do not find pleasant.
As for the feather, I’d probably still be bothered enough by it to toss it even though my brain is telling me the whole thing was immersed in hot oil. I’d be far more concerned if it appeared to be a feather from some other kind of bird. Like say it looked like a pigeon feather. Ew.
@Steve518: You’re probably right that it doesn’t ruin it all, but my mother raised me to be really organized and sanitary. Whenever any food had the smallest amount of mold on it or if you’ve found anything weird we would always just throw the whole thing out.
If this chicken was raised and produced at a local farm, people would be saying how wonderful it is, that it makes you think of just how close you are to the food you are eating.
I know Wal-Mart is an easy target, but it’s just a feather, which is probably healthier than the grease-laden fry-coating it rests upon.
If you’ve been offended by Wal-Mart this many times, and you do have another shopping option, albeit one, I’d say stop shopping at Wal-Mart. There, that was easy.
I used to live in a small town a long way away from a major shopping area. We had two grocery stores, and a Wal-Mart 13 miles away. Saying “shop at the other one” is easy in theory, but the reality is that incomes in my area were very, very low, and the “real” grocery stores were quite expensive.
It’s often financially not an option to shop at the other place. It’s obvious that Wal-mart didn’t get where they are by being a superior shopping experience or through stellar customer service. They got where they are because low-income people can save money there.
@Moosehawk: Certain foods for sure for me. The minute I see mold on a piece of fruit or vegetable, it’s gone.
I don’t think it’s a case of being unsanitary, it’s just knowing which types of food can still be consumed safely without making you gag.
@Murph1908: There’s an old saying in Tennessee…I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennesee that says….fool me once, shame on…..shame on you. Fool me you can’t get fooled again
The problem with Wal-Mart, as near as I can figure, is that they’ve gotten so big, and people so dependent on them, that they just don’t have to care anymore. One customer leaves, ten more flock in for the cheap light bulbs. That alone is reason enough for me not to shop there, as if I didn’t have a dozen others. I prefer a slightly more reciprocal relationship with the people who sell me my food.
And of course you can just cut off the mold and eat the rest of the cheese. How wasteful to throw it all away. The mold won’t even make you sick. It’s just unappealing. We willingly eat mold in other contexts. Blue cheese, for example, and Brie, both contain edible mold, as do many other varieties of cheese.
@Jon Parker:
If you cannot afford to go to a different store than Wal-Mart then you probably shouldnt be buying prepared fried chicken. You should be buying raw chicken for about 20% of the cost of prepared chicken and making it yourself
we had purchased one of those chickens from walmart ourselves not too long ago. weve gotten them in the past without problems but our chicken had half a coat on! my kids were traumatized and now refuse to each roasted chicken from anywhere, assuming they all come with feathers!
personally, we are mostly vegetarian at my house, even the kids.
I wonder if it came from some clothing nearby.
@Moosehawk: Cheese = Bacteria
Is this a difficult proposition to understand?!?!?
DON’T BUY FOOD FROM GODDAMN WALMART!
It’s disgusting to purchase perishable food from an outlet whose sole purpose is to price things as low as possible. Buy your food at a good grocery store!
What are you adding, 5 bucks more to a 50 dollar bill, and you get the pleasure of not vomiting poisonous bile after your meal? Sounds like a deal to me!
I just dry heaved at my desk. Gross.
And for the record, mold isn’t just contained to one small area of a piece of food. Mold sets down microscopic string-like roots and buries through food, so even if you’re cutting off the green part, chances are you’ve still got “mold threads” somewhere else in that food.
Unless you cut like 2 inches around the mold.
But sorry, this isn’t about mold. This is about feathers. Neither of which belong in anything that is on my plate for my consumption!
@FishingCrue: Tasty bacteria at that.
Mold is a fungus. Fungus = not tasty.
My theory is if one part of that block of cheese is molding, there’s a good chance the cheese is old as a whole and the rest of it will start developing mold soon. It probably is starting to taste a little stale by then too.
Don’t buy food from Wal-Mart, unless you realize that cheap prices == cheap quality.
I understand that not all incomes allow people to shop at Whole Foods or whatever, but be smart about it! Someone suggested buying a chicken and frying it yourself. Problem SOLVED.
What everyone seems to be missing is the fact that the feather was on the outside of the breading. He doesn’t say it was the feather itself that was grossing him out, but rather “we felt it might have been handled in an unsanitary fashion”, which is a reasonable fear.
omg moldy cheese is not rife with “mold threads” You don’t even have to refridgerate cheese. My mom used to work at a gourmet food store and one of the things they did in the morning was wash the mold off the cheese.
Now, moldy bread is different. Once you see one spot, it’s everywhere. Eww!
@yg17: BWAH HA HA!
You sound positively…presidential ^_^
I understand the limited shopping choices. This is what my town is like.
Wal Mart = number one grocery store
Winn-Dixie = Blew away in a tornado
Harveys = closed for renovation
Rubo’s = way out of the way and expensive
Sux to be in the south!
We never get meat at Wal-Mart… we’ve gotten rotten (frozen) chicken twice.
Oh help me, Jeebus. When did the majority of Americans become such pussies about their food!?
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have eaten things that probably weren’t the ultra-sanitized, over-processed, cooked-to-exactly-160-degrees-for-10-minutes food we eat today. And, yet, we’ve thrived as a species regardless of how “unsanitary” modern people believe most reall food is.
NEWSFLASH! Chickens are birds. Birds have feathers. It’s nigh impossible to remove 100% of the feather from any bird, whether its mechanically- or hand-plucked. The feather here is tiny. Pick it off and move on.
Also, ALL REAL CHEESE has some form of mold (I’m not counting the mass-produced whey-byproducts that Kraft and others like to foist on us as “cheese”). Real cheese is aged. Part of the aging process is the chemical reaction caused by mold. This is also true of truly cured meats. Mold won’t kill you (unless you’re highly allergic to it), in fact, some molds are very beneficial to your health.
And, for the love of god, stop shopping @ Walmart already.
GROSS!!! thanks for this post – not only did i lose my appetite but now i know to never buy any prepared food from walmart.
I don’t think I have ever eaten red meat from that place and not gotten the bubble gut later. Since I no longer shop there (well maybe once a year), it isn’t an issue any more.
You folks are all pussies. For Christ sake, you want to eat animals, but the moment you see anything that reminds you its an animal you get sick. Bread it, fry it, make it into nuggets. You’re still murdering something for your food. Accept it feathers, fur, and all or stop eating it all together.
@ancientsociety: When people started thinking that they where going to die from eating it. This is the same culture who has issues eating sushi, beef carpaccio, raw eggs yet has absolutly no problems putting HFCS into their bodys from soda.
I mean I can understand it. Im not a hunter, but I know some, and I am a fisher so I know where the food comes from, and whats involved in cooking it and getting it prepared. My mother grew and ate chickens back when Elizabeth NJ still allowed you to (1950′s – 60′s) so she had no issues if she saw feathers on chicken (which btw is very common, I bet you every single piece of fried non-boneless chicken every one of you have eaten has had at least one feather on it)
But then you got most of the American population here, who wouldnt know what to do with a whole animal for slaughter if they where presented with one who are so desensitized to their food as to get sick from common food born illnesses our parents and grandparents NEVER got sick from, or even worse to get freaked out when they see whats involved in getting you that hamburger as to forgo meat all together.
It doesnt take much to figure out why people posting here could be so stupid to not know feathers on cooked chicken is common.
Pretty soon everything we eat is going to be as processed and corn filled as a chicken nugget and Im going to laugh when people in America start dying at 55 because they are so fat and stupid about their foods.
Oh and just to make you guys really feel ill since your so pussified about your meat.
I AM THAT GUY WHO ATE THE PETTING ZOO COW!
True story, my fathers co-worker owned a nasty ass cow that was once part of a petting zoo, but they sent it out to the farm because it would bite the children. They tried to use it for milking and breeding but it was nasty to the other cows too. Nothing wrong with it, just must have gotten terrorized or soemthing as to be very nasty. So they ended up having it slaughtered and we got the meat.
Daisy was some of the juiciest steaks I have ever had!
@Mark 2000: Ok you go ahead and eat some feathers and tell me how much you like it.
It’s not that it reminds me of an animal, it’s that it’s FEATHERS. Last time I checked, they don’t taste all that well.
And btw, chicken nuggets aren’t really made of chicken. It’s like 60% corn starch.
While I agree that finding a feather on a piece of chicken is disgusting, it shouldn’t be unexpected… Just means they didn’t completely defeather the chicken and that they left the skin on. It’s like that time I found a grub in my jar of fruit. Gross, but it’s going to happen at some point, grubs eat fruit like chickens have feathers.
One lady once told me it meant that the chicken was fresher because it had a feather on it. I called BS.
That company never got back to me about my grub… oh well.
Ok, I didn’t read every comment, but did anybody mention (on the mold subject) that a good portion of the cheeses we eat are…..moldy on pupose.
As for the chicken with feathers on the outside of the breading, I don’t like that one bit. Maybe if they were in the breading. I don’t like chicken that much anyway so I don’t know.