Everything about Chicken Mcnuggets totally explained
Chicken McNuggets (introduced in June
1980) are a
fast food product offered by the restaurant chain
McDonald's. They popularized the
chicken nugget, which had been invented in the 1950s, and are one of the most popular
trademarked items on the McDonald's menu.
McNuggets, as they're commonly known, are small pieces of formed
chicken that have been
battered and
deep fried. They are sold in packages of 4, 6, 10, 20 and 50 (4, 6, 9 and 20 in the
United Kingdom). In Australia, they're also available in 3 packs in
Happy meals and
Heart Foundation approved Tick healthy meals. They come with a choice of various flavors of
dipping sauce.
Product description
The Chicken McNugget is a small piece of minced chicken breast and
mechanically separated meat held together with
phosphate salts and some chicken skin. The pieces are coated with batter, lightly fried to set the batter, individually quick frozen, packaged, and sent to stores. At the McDonald's stores, the McNuggets are deep-fried and sold. According to McDonald's, Chicken McNuggets are made entirely of "
white meat" as opposed to
dark meat.
Dipping sauce options
Sauces vary by market. The United States market offers
Barbecue sauce,
sweet n sour,
honey, and Hot
Mustard specifically for the McNuggets. Spicy Buffalo Sauce,
Creamy Ranch, Tangy
Honey Mustard and
Southwestern Chipotle barbecue sauce are offered for the
Chicken Selects but available upon request. These sauces are not free for customers who don't order McNuggets. You get one sauce with a 4 or 6 piece, two with a 10 pieces, and 4 with a 20 piece. Any more than that's 30 cents a sauce. But people get around those by asking for the sauce at the second drivethru window, or after they've paid if eating in the restuarant. Other markets offer some additional sauces as per market demographics. These sauces are not always in addition, but are sometimes substitutions for other sauces on the menu. Sauces such as the American Chipotle BBQ sauce don't translate to other countries, and as such the sauce is the same but renamed smokey bbq. At one point in the mid 80's-very early 90's
teriyaki was also offered. Other sauces available in different countries include crazy
curry,
tomato basil, sweet
chili,,
garlic, and
jalapeño
History
In November 2003, McDonald's switched to using all white meat for McNuggets instead of the traditional combination of white and dark meat. This was heavily promoted as an effort to improve the item's flavor. McDonald's state that they use
mechanically separated breast meat in the production of their McNuggets. A small amount of chicken skin is recovered with the breast meat.
At the same time that they stopped using dark meat, McDonald's announced that they were using less salt in the preparation of McNuggets. This was recognized as an attempt to make their products healthier. However, the sodium levels listed in McDonald's nutrition facts have actually increased: from 530
mg for 6 pieces between 2000–2002, to 670 mg for 2003–2005.
Chicken McNuggets vary from different countries. For example, in European countries a crumby breading is used, whereas in the North America the previously mentioned batter is used.
Advertising
McNuggets Shanghai were a sales
gimmick used by the
McDonald's Corporation in 1986. They were accompanied by a pair of
chopsticks, a
fortune cookie and a choice of
sweet and sour,
teriyaki, or hot mustard sauce.
McNuggets Shanghai were discontinued after only a few months, most likely because of nothing really was different between them and normal McNuggets. They are no longer available, although in the Summer of
1998 the McNuggets were packaged in Chinese food take-out boxes again to go along with their promotion of the
Disney animated movie
Mulan.
In 1988 "Fiesta" McNuggets were marketed, these were like McNuggets Shanghai in that nothing was different except for the packaging and a foreign/exotic gimmick, in this case Fiesta McNuggets came with a collectible "fiesta" coin. These also didn't last long and were discontinued soon after.
In the
McDonaldland series of advertisements, Chicken McNuggets were
anthropomorphised as the
McNugget Buddies, rounded nuggets with faces and voices who usually came in groups corresponding to the amounts available on a McDonald's menu, appearing in a McNugget box, lined up like
eggs in a
carton.
As of July, 2007, a McNuggets rap has been used by McDonalds. The video contains two young men, one of them
beatboxing while the other does a
freestyle rap about McNuggets. The young men in the video are Fernando Sosa (beatboxing) and Thomas Middleditch. The video was directed by Matt Malinsky. All three are improv actors in
Chicago (
Wrigley Field can be seen in the background). As of 3/1 2008 the commercial hadn't aired in Chicago, but run in a number of cities in the northeast
Controversy
In 1984,
James Oliver Huberty killed 21 people and wounded 19 others at a McDonald's in
San Ysidro,
California, in what became known as the
San Ysidro McDonald's massacre. Three years later, in 1987, his widow, Etna filed a
USD$5 million lawsuit against McDonald's, claiming that the massacre was triggered by her husband's consumption of excessive amounts of Chicken McNuggets. She alleged that
monosodium glutamate from the food interacted with the
lead and
cadmium that had built up in Huberty's body after 14 years as a
welder. The claim was dismissed.
The 2004 documentary
Super Size Me alleged that McNuggets were, at one point in time, made from sick and/or old chickens unable to lay eggs, and that they included chemicals such as
tertiary butylhydroquinone (a phenolic antioxidant),
polydimethylsiloxane (an
anti-foaming agent), and other ingredients not used by a typical home cook. As of 2007, these two ingredients are still listed as possible ingredients of the vegetable oil that's used to fry McNuggets. Eventually it was senior engineer Ivan Martinez that decided to make the nuggets with all white meat.
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