Tips on Eating Big from the Grocery Industry

[kcc]

One thing to remember whenever you're dealing with a supermarket - they've already paid for the product. If there's a chance that it's going to outdate, they'd much rather sell it at a discount than throw it in the dumpster.

[Bolson32]

What is the purpose of Brining? Aside to make the chicken taste better? Is it really so they soak up a bunch of weight and they can sell them for more? I'm wondering if the time commitment to doing this is really worth the extra sale price.

With that said, I have cooked those 3lb bags of really shitty chicken breasts and routinely ended up with about 1.5 lbs of shredded chicken. That's a bummer really, considering they're like $9-$10.

[kcc]

What is the purpose of Brining?

We don't brine at the company I work for, but my guess is to get a longer shelf life. That's what brining was originally used for, unless I'm greatly mistaken. Our rotisserie birds have a shelf life measured in hours - I would imagine a brined chicken would have a 2-3 day shelf life.

[sbhikes]

Brining makes it tastier and moister. Since it will be on the spit roasting for a long time, the moisture from brining keeps the meat from becoming dry and tasteless. There's no conspiracy there. And the gelatinous stuff complained about earlier? That's just gelatin.