Is It Safe To Eat Yellow Chicken?

Chicken is one of the most versatile proteins out there, so it's no wonder that Americans on average consume roughly 100 pounds of this type of poultry every year. It's sold in pretty much every supermarket and can be purchased in a variety of different cuts, including whole, the breast, the thighs (hello, superior dark meat), the drumsticks, etc. If you've ever sidled on up to your grocery store's meat cooler and looked at the packages, though, you might have noticed a yellow hue to the skin of the chicken. Does that mean it's unsafe?

According to the USDA, raw poultry skin can come in a few different colors that might seem off, including blue undertones to the whiteness of the skin as well as a yellow tint. Which means it's perfectly safe to eat chicken that veers more toward yellow than white. The yellow could be caused by the chicken snacking on marigolds before it was processed. These brilliantly colored flowers contain organic pigments called carotenoids which not only affect the yellow of the chicken's skin, they also help determine how deeply yellow the yolks in their eggs will be.

Yellow chicken skin may be totally normal and safe to eat, but yellow flesh is not. Nor is your raw chicken likely safe if it has gone gray. And if mold makes an appearance? Instant trash, as what you see on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg. There are very likely mold spores and roots all throughout the rest, so don't go thinking you can wash it off (you shouldn't be washing your chicken, anyway) and eat what remains.

One of the biggest tell-tale signs that your raw chicken should be tossed is the appearance of slime. Fresh chicken is glossy. And while it may be wet, that wetness should not have the consistency of a syrup, which chicken slime does. There's also the smell to consider. It's unmistakable when poultry has really gone to the dark side because the meat will have an absolutely rancid odor about it. However, if your chicken is in the beginning stages of going bad, that odor might not be so pronounced. A good rule of thumb is this: If it smells even slightly different from or worse than the odorless scent of fresh chicken, it means your chicken has likely gone bad and you should throw it out to be safe.