Broiler White Striping: A Review of Its Etiology, Effects on Production, and Mitigation Efforts

Abstract

With an increase in the demand and production of chicken products, broilers have been bred to grow larger at a faster rate. This has led to several myopathies, one of which being white striping, which is now common to almost all broilers and is characterized as the deposition of fat within the broiler breast muscles. The purposes of this review are to examine the change in chicken production over the years, and to consider normal muscle growth physiology and the suspected pathological process and causes of white striping, as well as white striping visualization and detection in fast-growing broilers. With the increase in growth rate and size, multiple biochemical processes are affected in broilers, leading to hypoxia and inflammation, subsequent formation of foam cells from macrophages, and the deposition of fat in the form of white stripes along the muscle tissues. The negative effects of white striping include increased fat content and calories and decreased protein content, as well as reductions in palatability and drip loss. Thus, this review also explores the effects of white striping on meat quality, and finally evaluates several strategies attempted to mitigate white striping.