Yellow spots on chicken liver

[mayache]

I bought some chicken livers yesterday to make pate. One of the livers in the container has a mottled appearance, with some yellowish color on the otherwise red liver (picture http://i.imgur.com/TybLM.jpg). I know that if the liver is yellowish as a whole it's OK to eat since it's just fatty, but if it's spotty like this does that mean it's bad?

Since I already had cooked the other ingredients for the pate when I discovered this, I went ahead and threw the other livers (not this one) in and made it. Is the pate safe to eat or should I throw the whole thing out?

[John E.]

As others have said, it's just fat on the chicken's liver. If it were the liver of a rabbit that you discovered white or yellow spots on it while you were field dressing the rabbit my answer would be different. That rabbit would be infected with a bacteria called Tularemia that is transmitted to humans through breaks in a person's skin. But since that bacteria affects rodents and not chickens you are safe with your chicken livers. (TMI?)

[monavano]

Not TMI, very interesting.

[Sam Salmon]

If you can eat the oil filter from your car then you can eat a battery raised Chicken's liver-sure why not?

[Kagemusha]

Drinking problem?

[hotoynoodle]

you'd be hitting the sauce too if you lived 6 hens to a cage the size of a milk crate!

[monavano]

He didn't want to go to rehab. He said no, no, no.

[monavano]

(spits out cereal) Thanks for the laugh.

[monavano]

The chicken's liver is fatty. What caused it, I don't know, but I don't think it's a contagious pathogen. The liver's chicken in question was probably ill.

[hotoynoodle]

it just look like fatty spots.

did you buy regular supermarket chicken livers? industrially farmed chickens often have "fatty liver disease" from their diets. it's not "bad" as far as pathogens go but something i choose never to eat because of the liver's function in a body.

[scubadoo97]

Just remember a chicken's life is very short so no long term exposure