green packet of meat along chicken's breast.

[U_Stormcrow]

So stupid question kind of related to green meat- sounds like it turns green because of bile products in the tissue from the breakdown of blood, like in a bruise. So if you break the gall bladder during processing and get the green on the muscle, we know not to use that meat. Is it because of ruined flavor or is it because bile is toxic …? I feel like I ought to know this …

I jokingly refer to the bile as being "radioactive". Clearly not the case, but I handle with extreme care (the only part I work around with extreme care) - though I have at times butchered a bird (other than the decapitation) and parted it out with nothing but my hands.

ANSWER: Bile is EXTREMELY bitter. If you break the sack, flush the bird thoroughly - even a little bit can affect the flavor of the meat.

Further answer. Technically, it *IS* toxic. But as with everything else, "the dosage is the poison". Here, there isn't enough of the toxins in the bile in the sack, even if you could force yourself to eat it, to poison a human. I don't believe there's enough to cause symptoms in a chicken, either - but I don't give it to them anyways. I also don't give my chickens the liver or the kidneys of their prior flock mates. Those are the organs where toxins, heavy metals, etc accumulate - so I don't keep recycling that accumulation of undesired back into the flock.

Necesssary? Probably not on any reasonable time scale. Does my wife sleep better for it, based on nothing more than a feeling of a belief that its prudent? Yes, yes she does.

 

[Sally PB]

I also don't give my chickens the liver or the kidneys of their prior flock mates. Those are the organs where toxins, heavy metals, etc accumulate - so I don't keep recycling that accumulation of undesired back into the flock.

This is why I can't bring myself to eat liver. As a nurse said to me, "It's the cesspool of the body."

I did taste turkey liver. Once. That was enough for me.

This thread has been very informative. Things I never knew about chickens...