Chicken Plumping, does it really happen? Even in Organic Chicken?

What is plumping and what does it mean to your food?

 

Plumping is the process of injecting a liquid into your meats.  It is done for one reason and one reason only, to increase the profit.  We, as Americans, buy food by the pound. When you walk to the register with a chicken breast the grocery store charges you based on weight, the same way they purchased it.

 

If that chicken breast really weighs only 5 ounces then you get approximately 3 of these to a pound, What if these very same chicken breasts are plumped to weigh 8 ounces? Yes, you are correct, the profit margin goes up by over 30%.  It is always cheaper to fill your food with salt water, brine, blood or other products than to raise the to that size (sometimes they can not even get to that size naturally.

Wait, I buy organic chicken, it is not plumped....... think of this.... salt and water are organic and are commonly added to increase the weight of the food. This is true in every grocery store whether or not you are buying chicken in Charlotte, NC, Columbia, SC or anywhere else in the United States.