UPDATE: This is probably deep-fried small intestine, according to commenters, for some of whom finding this in their KFC is apparently a common occurrence.
John says he found some brain in his KFC chicken thigh in Raleigh, NC. We asked him if he was sure it wasn’t just skin and fat mixed together.
Pretty sure, yeah. Fat usually has more of a yellow tint, and is more gelatinous on chicken. This was a solid looking piece, a little more than 1/4th of an inch thick at the widest part, and it had the unmistakable “lines” that you see in the brain organ. It was also firm to the touch, unlike rubbery fat. If it was a piece of skin/fat, it sure pulled off a good look alike.
Look on the bright side; at least now we know KFC uses real chicken.
More gruesome pix, inside…
Says John,
Needless to say, we’re never eating at KFC again. (Especially after looking at these greasy close up shots.) It’s not worth the time to take it back to the store, seeing as how all they’d do is give us a gift certificate to come back.
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Student Finds The Absolute Grossest, Disgusting Chicken Brain (Kidney?) Thing In His KFC
I have to add into this discussion. While the people who have brought some sanity into this discussion are mostly right, that piece is not intestine but kidney. The way KFC separates the pieces the backbone is generally partly attached. The kidneys sit on either side of the backbone by the leg/thigh. I think the problem is most of us are used to seing our food sanitized, and in the case of chicken, skinless and boneless.
I usually see that part on the thighs from KFC, my dog loves it!
I think i just puked in my mouth a little bit.
This is kind of crap is below the consumerist. This obviously is just some wussy child that is afraid of food and has never had fried chicken before. Even worse then the fool that thinks it was brains, is this website for putting forward this as fact.
I can imagine the complainer has never cooked thier own food. I can also assume prior to this it was only chicken fingers and McNuggets.
Disgusting that people freak out about this.
I think The Colonel’s face says it all.
Holy shit that’s gross. But then again, I think that any close-up shot of KFC just might be equally as disgusting.
Hmm…I wonder if this will stop me from eating KFC.
I think the “green stuff” is the bones. When I worked at KFC the bones on the thighs and breasts were black.
muscle, skin, brain….it doesn’t matter its all from a dead animal.
It annoys me when western omnivores think its gross when omnivores in other parts of the world eat brains, frogs, turtles, cats, dogs, horses.….its all relative.
I’ve seen a number of posts online about brains being found in KFC. It frightens me to think of how many of these go unreported or unnoticed. I’m just glad I stopped eating KFC period. They would always screw up my order anyways.
That’s soooo totally not brains. I’ve had that squiggly thing in my KFC chicken, in fried chicken from other stores, and in whole chicken that I’ve butchered and cooked myself. It’s almost always in the thigh.
I’m no chicken anatomy expert, but I’ve eaten my share of variety meats and I don’t think it’s small intestine. Intestines are muscle tissue and that mystery part is too soft and textureless to be muscle. It seems like a bundle of blood vessels or nerves or something.
He should be grateful. The brain is probably the only part of the chicken that hasn’t been smeared for months with the feces of its owner’s compatriots.
I stopped eating at KFC’s after reading about the way they make their chicken on this site.
Yeah, that’s pretty disgusting! I gagged when I saw it.
“Look on the bright side; at least now we know KFC uses real chicken.”
Good point, but back on topic… That shit is just disgusting… Popeye’s it is!
My insula must be broke. I’d say I have a somewhat addictive personality, and I don’t get grossed out that often.
I love to eat “natural casing” hot dogs and sausages (intestines) and I’ve eaten pig’s intestine straight. But I feel like puking now
They should market it towards chicken zombies. [Stupid comment? Yes, I know. But my mind kept replaying Living Dead soundbites of "Braaainnnss!" and wouldn't shut up until I posted this.]
Unless they gave him part of the head, I doubt that’s brain. Probably fried up the intestines of a chicken that just ate it’s last meal.
@Mom2Talavera:
While I can say that I don’t think eating brains is gross, but popping open THE CHICKEN THIGH that I ordered and finding BRAINS INSTEAD is just sick (even if it isn’t brains–it ain’t chicken thigh).
The chicken sure looks bad but that doesn’t look like brains to me.
@SJActress:
Well, at least it IS chicken. It could have been ethylene glycol from China. Or the straps from a Walmart flip-flop that would give you a “chemical burn”
AUGH! Why did we need to see it SO enlarged?
I too think it’s just small intestine…but what part of the chicken was he eating?
Wait a sec, that’s the chicken thigh (not to be confused with the drumstick) and the green part is the bone. Hmmm, I’ve run across this a lot when I eat that part.
Which is why I’m a breast man.
Just another reason to not eat at KFC…a coworker found maggots in her chicken once. Inside her chicken. She ripped off the skin and there they were.
And nothing freaks me out more than maggots. I just can’t eat the stuff now. Thanks for the reminder!
If you don’t want to eat brains or whatever part of dead animals you find disgusting, just don’t eat dedad animals. It shouldn’t be too difficult.
@Pipes: Pics or it didn’t happen. Also, where was this?
Vegetarianism, here I come! Oh wait, I’m already vegetarian. Nevermind.
Seriously though, I agree with what some people are saying, atleast it’s part of the animal itself and not some other unrelated animal/human part. It looks gross, but atleast you know it’s real chicken. If you want safely prepared meat, prepare your own, but don’t expect a fast food company (which shouldn’t be known for quality food) to provide the same.
Man, I’m hungry now.
I always love the predictable responses of the holier-than-thous who say “Bah, no biggie”. Sure, they are buying dead animal, but you buy it with the reasonable expectation that you’re not going to get a round of intestines and green glop/chicken shit served to you. No one here would happily scarf it down and not say anything or mind. Get off your high horses.
Hasn’t anyone ever seen a raw chicken wing before? That’s all that looks like.
I have to say – Consumerist, you’re definitely help me curb my fast food habits, one chain at a time!
Hnh. No biggie. I love organ meats, myself. Barbequed chicken intestins go for a quarter a stick in Thailand, and make great munching between bars! But I prefer the hearts myself!
@ amiga_500
Thanks, dude! That’s my favorite part of the thigh! I always thought it was a little bit of the liver! Now, where can I get a bucket of chicken kidneys?
Thank God I’m a veg. I hope the rest of you catch Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease, cancer, and all that other pretty stuff that you get when you eat death. ;]
@Fatal616:
You get CJD from eating brains. Severely undercooked brains that are infected with a specific prion, to be precise.
Infection rates are insanely rare (according to Wikipedia, the infection rate rate is somewhere around one case per million people per year), but it sounds sexy for news people to say “Mad Cow!” at the tops of their lungs and incite panic.
If we weren’t meant to eat meat, we wouldn’t have canines or incisors.
D:
In response to narcolepticdoc, who makes the claim that this is “likely visceral organ meat” i’m sure most readers will be infinitely relieved when they realize they’re eating a colon or a liver as opposed to the brain. Inject sanity? Perhaps standards is a better goal.
Chicken brain is white in color and it is not attached to the thigh.
@bluesunburn:
I would also like to add The “T” in a T-bone steak is a vertebra from the animal’s spinal column and as such main contain a section of the actual spinal cord. Other potentially contaminated cuts include porterhouse,standing rib roast,prime rib with bone,bone in rib steak and chuck blade roast with loin. These cuts may include spinal cord tissue and or so called dorsal root ganglia,swelling of the nerve roots coming into the meat from the spinal cord which has been proven to be infectious.
Spinal cord contamination is probably most abundant in ground beef products:hot dogs, hamburgers, meat based pizza toppings and taco fillings.
@Mom2Talavera: And this is what makes those products most delicious among the foods of Man.
@pinkbunnyslippers: That is in no way a raw chicken wing….seriously.
I handled raw chicken wings yesterday for dinner..that isn’t raw chicken wing. That’s something entirely different.
Geez, enough with all the “meat comes from animals, if you cant look at it dont eat it” comments.
Food turns into crap, so should we handle and view our own feces? Maybe we should tell people “if you cant look at and handle your own poo, you shouldnt be eating food!”
If a person pays for a bucket of deep fried chicken muscles, they should not have to hope that the bucket doesnt contain some other part of the animal.
Next time you get a salad, should you have to worry that there are poison ivy leaves in it? Thats a leaf too, right? If you cant deal with eating all kinds of leaves, you shouldnt eat any at all.
(by some peoples logic at least)
I’m not exactly a fan of KFC, so I hate to say it, but I don’t think this reflects on KFC in any way.. their suppliers are the same people that make the same chicken you eat anywhere else. Odds are some one on the evisceration line didn’t quite get all the guts out. Not a good thing, but it’s a symptom of eating chicken, not a symptom of eating KFC.
And no, it couldn’t be the brains. Chicken heads come off very early in the slaughter process, are not split open, and even if by Act of God a head split open and the brain found its way to the thigh, there is not a chance it would stay there through the rinsing, chilling and 9pc cutting.
I just ate KFC tonight and found the same organ in my food. I actually think it is a lung. You can notice the bronchial tubes leading to the organ and some of the ribs surrounding the lung.
lol dude thats not brains of a chicken, I’m a cook at Kfc and I have been for abuot 2 years now. It looks like to me that its a thigh piece of meat. When cooking thighs you have to break the hip bone outta place. The raw piece of meat that you see looks like skin that didnt get cooked all the way. this happens alot in pressure cookers that we use in Kfc for orignal chicken. If anyone who worked at a Kfc currently or ever has, they would say the same thing. It just looks like its under cooked meat. Getting chicken that is under cooked is very comman at Kfc because of the time it takes to drop chicken in the fryers and its demand by customers.
Thanks for the news.
I will take this photo on my mobile.
So that I wont eat fastfood again.
Help me to lose weight
Hahahahahas
I just now found what I know without a shadow of a doubt to be a chicken brain in my 10 year old son’s KFC meal. I have not eaten there in ages, but my kids got a craving for fried chicken, so we ordered a 7pc. meal. In the middle of eating it, my son jumped up from the table, freaking out about something being in his chicken. Upon looking closely at what he was pointing at, I couldn’t believe it – it was most definately a brain. It really doesn’t look like the picture submitted here – what I’m looking at has the tell tale signs of a brain – about the size of a pecan – grayish in color, and with the zig-zag lines of a brain – it also has some sort of stem coming out of the bottom of it. I tried taking a picture, but my camera wouldn’t get a good close-up shot. I’ll try uploading the picture I have – it’s hard to tell from the picture, but there is no doubt that it is a brain. I’m so grossed out. I will never eat at KFC again and I’m regretting that we ever did in the first place. I want my money back, to say the least. Ugh.