A bizarre recipe video starring an animated piece of raw chicken has left food lovers feeling seriously conflicted.
Footage of the breast fillet taking viewers through a recipe for what appears to be a Chinese dish was shared to TikTok by New World Cuisine.
It’s one of several stop-animation videos that have been uploaded to the channel but it is by far the most popular with the clip accumulating over 15 million views already. It can be watched here.
Zufar Kamilov/Getty
There’s something undeniably tempting about watching a good recipe video. In fact, a study by researchers from the University of Surrey found that watching recipe clips can actually lead to overeating.
Back in 2020, a group of volunteers were asked to either watch a video of someone making a cheese wrap, make their own cheese wrap using a set of instructions or complete an activity like coloring a picture and then eat a cheese wrap that was made by someone earlier.
What they found was that the group who watched the video of the wrap being made ate 14 percent more of their food than those who completed an activity before eating. Meanwhile, the group following the recipe ate 11 percent more than the one involved in a pre-meal activity.
Reflecting on her findings, study author Jane Ogden concluded: “Preparing food ourselves may have additional effects because it’s multi-sensory. The smells, sounds and tastes of active food preparation tell our body that food is coming. This generates an anticipatory response in both our mind and body, getting us ready to eat.”
But while most recipe videos seemingly entice the viewer to eat more, given the response being generated on social media, it would appear that the clip posted online by New World Cuisine may be having the opposite effect.
In the video, a raw chicken breast can be seen slithering across a chopping board before taking the skin off a tomato. The tomato is then chopped and put to one side before the chicken breast reappears, slithering across the screen to pull the heads off a selection of shrimp.
The chicken breast is then flattened out and chopped up before the similarly diced up shrimp is mixed up with it along with what appear to be green peppers, carrots, sweetcorn and two eggs.
Salt, pepper and a selection of unspecified spices are added before the meat is rolled up into aa giant mass and eventually divided up into significantly small balls ready to be fried.
The resulting dish appears highly appetizing, yet the vast majority of online viewers struggled to get past the sight of the raw chicken breast slithering across the screen.
It’s easy to understand why that may be the case. According to the CDC, an estimated 1 million people in the US get sick as a result of contaminated poultry. Raw chicken is often contaminated with Campylobacter bacteria more Salmonella and Clostridium perfringens bacteria. As a result, eating undercooked chicken can lead to serious foodborne illnesses.
More relevant still, it is possible to become ill from eating foods over beverages contaminated with raw chicken and its juices.
In that context, the scene playing out in the video appeared to amount to something akin to a meat-based horror movie for many watching online. Notjosiedower commented: “This was traumatizing” with L31A agreeing: “I’ve been made to feel uncomfortable.”
Yantastic admitted: “I honestly don’t know how to feel about this” while all daisyjo27 could think about was “The raw chicken juice…”
Benny_barbs was similarly alarmed, writing: “That raw fillet just touching everything” with confetti and spaghetti asking: “did you just rub raw chicken on everything?”
It’s important to note that, given the stop-motion nature of the clip, it’s entirely conceivable to think that the video was completed in an entirely safe and hygienic way.
That didn’t stop the likes of Como-como-como-chameleon continuing to voice reservations about the clip. “You guys worrying about cross contamination and I’m just wondering how long that chicken was out for since it’s stop motion,” they said.
J.and.then.ace did attempt to defend those making the video, writing: “Guys it’s not cross contamination if he’s literally combining it all and cooking it anyway.”
Newsweek has contacted New World Cuisine for comment.
