Danielle McCarthy
Money & Banking

The strange discovery a Coles customer made while cooking dinner

A Coles customer has been left horrified after discovering green flesh inside a chicken breast fillet they purchased from the supermarket in Victoria.

Jamie Ferguson purchased the RSPCA approved chicken from Northcote Place in Victoria and she took to social media to warn other shoppers of her unusual discovery.

She said: “Upon cooking dinner tonight, we opened a packet of 4 chicken breasts to separate … we added 1 to a tray of roast veggies we were in the process of cooking, and bagged the rest to freeze. On the last one, this is what we see. Absolutely disgusting!

“We had to throw out the dinner we were cooking. Outraged. We will not be buying from Coles after this,” Jamie wrote, noting that the chicken was still within the expiry date.

However, the supermarket reassured the customer that despite the unusual colour, the chicken is safe to eat.

The spokeswoman explained that the green colouring is caused by deep pectoral myopathy (DPM) and is generally the result of a “bird flapping its wings too much".

“DMP is a green discoloration of the flesh caused when swelling occurs as a result of oxygen deficiency in the muscle,” she said.

“This usually happens from the bird flapping its wings too much. It is not harmful to eat and the taste of the chicken would not be altered.”

A Coles spokeswoman said that the supermarket giant had contacted Jamie and offered her a full return or replacement.

Coles highlighted that the quality of the supermarket’s products is “very important” and said all customers were welcome to return a “green chicken” to their nearest store, if they purchased one.

This is not the first time a Coles customer has unknowingly purchased a green chicken. In 2016, a customer said on social media that a chicken “appears to have gangrene”. A spokesperson at the time reassured the customer that it was DPM.

Researchers have found that cases of DPM are on the rise but “the lesion does not impair the general health of birds and is generally found during cut-up and deboning”, reported news.com.au. 

Would you eat this green chicken? Let us know in the comments below. 

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green, chicken, coles, breast, not, harmful