Chicken McNuggets

[kdfrawg]

I just thought that I would throw this in as somethng that is the exact opposite of Teresa's great "Real Butter" post. The two paragraph's below are from an excellent book called "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who eats.

Now, on to the McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. The flyer that he is talking about is an informational sheet that McDonalds prints and will provide upon request.

"The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn.  Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative.  A couple of other plants take part in the nugget: There's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability.

According to the handout, McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant.  These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road.  Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate.  These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid.  Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry.  The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable.  But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness."  According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget.  Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse."  Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."

[Teresa]

[kdfrawg]

< nod, nod >

I know.

That book is just a fascinating read.

[MarineMom]

A few years ago I went on a "field trip" to a plant that produces chicken nuggets and not a single one has crossed my lips since that is the grossest thing I have ever seen. Every kid in the USA needs to go. It would cure them all of wanting chicken nuggets for the rest of their lives lol

[Diane Amberg]

 Do you know I have never eaten a chicken Mc Nugget? I do get their egg Mc Muffins occasionally, and I like their salads. I have a good friend who is their special events coordinator. She schedules Ronald and sponsors a lot of quiet donations and charity work that Mc D's does.  All the McD's in this area are owned by one family, who is very community oriented. They started here back in the late fifties and I remember the 15 cent burgers. Their first place was across the back from one of our fire stations and our guys would often get food there. One day, back in the 80's, some of our guys were in there for breakfast, when someone came running up from the basement yelling," gas leak, everybody out!" And with that the building exploded. It went straight up in the air and came back down with the sides buckled out and the roof pancaked down on the ground. There were several serious injuries among the staff and minor injuries among the guests. Our guys were able to crawl out and began helping others. Fortunally nobody died.

[kdfrawg]

So, you're saying that one can die slowly at McDonald's from eating the Chicken McNuggets or quickly from the catastrophes? That sounds like a lottery made in hell.  ;o)

The people that run the McDonald's in Lawrence are also very civic-minded and their stores are always beautifully decorated with flowers. I have also noticed that they live in a two million dollar home.

I think that the Ronald McDonald houses do wonderful work. I also believe that Ronald McDonald is the scariest-looking, most ill-conceived "clown" that ever despoiled the planet.

McDonald French fries are good, though.

[Diane Amberg]

 Apparently they tried several Ronald "looks" before they put one on the street.  This guy was the one the kids responded to best.  We have two that do this area and they are surprisingly talented people.  The Dukarts took quite a risk and went deeply into debt to open their first place.  Their kids went to school with my husband, so he knew the family quite well.  They have been outrageously successful, but you would never know it.  Mr. and Mrs. Dukart died a couple of years ago in their 80's, (so I guess their food didn't kill them ) and the sons carry on the business.  Some of their stuff I won't touch, some is fine.  They are trying to give kids more healthy food choices and the apple slices and milk jugs are quite popular.