What Chicken Nuggets Are Really Made Of & Why McDonald’s Nuggets Are Different

2019-12-02 , 1:00 pm

When I was in Primary 5, my form teacher decided to treat the whole class to a McDonald’s meal as an “after exam” treat.

When the McDonald’s meals arrived, we were all happy. I mean, how often do you get to eat in class?

But here comes the catch. After he distributed out our meals, he asked us if we knew how nuggets were made.

We stared at him, shaking our heads. And that was when he start played a video on how nuggets were made.

To sum up the video in a few gifs, it looked SOMETHING like this.

Yup, all that while we were munching on the nuggets. It was pretty gross. But we still kept munching on.

But What Are Nuggets Exactly Made Of?

With all the noise that came from my classmates screams of disgust, one can barely hear the audio of what exactly was being grounded up to make our nuggets.

There was also a picture that was circulating the net a few years back, claiming that this blop of “pink slime” was what the nuggets that we consume are made of.

Well, it turns out that the “pink slime” is actually used for nuggets. That is if your nuggets are from your local grocery store because McDonald’s claims otherwise.

The “Pink Slime”

In a Jamie Oliver video, he showed children how nuggets were made as he sliced and blended up the leftover bits of a chicken before putting it through a strainer.

That is actually the first step to getting the “Pink Slime”.

The “Pink Slime”, according to Business Insider, is mechanically separated chicken. The chickens are ground up and turned into goop with the processing machines so that chicken nuggets can be created.

If you’re wondering why the colour of the nuggets in the Jamie Oliver video is vastly different from the colour in the picture of the “Pink Slime”, it is because it has not been treated with ammonia and the different flavourings yet.

In the factory, the pink goop is washed with strong-smelling ammonia to kill the bacteria. After the ammonia shower, it is reflavoured artificially to remove the gross taste. And after that, because of its weirdly pink colour, it will be dyed with artificial colour.

And that is what goes into your nuggets, unless, you choose to get them from McDonald’s.

No “Pink Slime” In McDonald’s McNuggets

When word about how McDonald’s might be using the same “Pink Slime” in their McNuggets, they came forth with a video in 2014 on how their nuggets were made, in an effort to be more transparent about their food.

Quite frankly, the process of how it was made sounds pretty similar to how the “Pink Slime” was made.

But in the video, they made is CLEAR that they use no such “Pink Slime” in their nuggets.

“We don’t know what it is or what it came from, but it has nothing to do with our chicken McNuggets,” said Nicoletta Stefou, supply chain manager of McDonald’s Canada.

The Seasonings In McNuggets

According to the video, whole chickens are deboned and the breast meat is separated. The breast meat is then grounded up before it is added to a blender with a mix of seasonings and chicken skin, which acts as a natural binder that is said to add flavour.

It was stated in another video by YouTuber Ed Stein that the “mixed seasonings” included sodium phosphates, food starch and salt.

The McDonald’s video also compared the image of the “Pink Slime” to the breast meat that was grounded and mixed.

Sure enough, the grounded up meat was nowhere close to pink, but it still does look like “questionable raw meat goop“.

The Difference Between McDonald’s And The Rest

The chicken mixture is then moulded into the four signature McNugget shapes- yes! The nuggets are not randomly moulded up.

McDonald’s even has names for the distinct shapes: the ball, the bell, the boot and the bowtie.

The shapes are coated in a light batter and then coated again in a thicker tempura batter.

And there you have it! That’s how nuggets are made.

So, are you grossed out by the questionable raw goop? Or is nothing going to stop you from eating nuggets?