Chicken McNuggets
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Chicken McNuggets (introduced in 1983) 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 are commonly known, are small pieces of formed chicken meat that have been battered and deep fried. They are sold in packages of 4, 6, 9, 10, 20 and come with a choice of various flavors of dipping sauce, such as barbecue, sweet and sour, honey, curry, or hot mustard.
Composition
The McNugget is a small piece of minced chicken and mechanically separated meat held together with phosphate salts. 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.
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 come in two shapes. The first resembles a boot – a rectangular shape with a stub jutting out of one of the corners. The second is a circle. Though the exact origin of these shapes is unclear, most believe the circle and the boot resulted from a need to maximize yield from the meat mixture.
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 TBHQ (a butane-derived preservative), Dimethylpolysiloxane (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 is used to fry McNuggets.[1]
History
McDonald's Chairman Fred Turner approached one of his suppliers in 1979 and requested “I want a chicken finger-food the size of your thumb. Can you do it?” Chicken McNuggets were developed soon thereafter.
They were introduced in 1983, after the chain's first attempt at a chicken product, the McChicken sandwich, was withdrawn after disappointing sales. (It was later reintroduced after the success of Chicken McNuggets.) McNuggets quickly helped McDonald's become the second largest purchaser of chicken (after KFC).
An alternate story is that McNuggets, and the dipping sauces, were developed by product development chef Rene Arend.
Shanghai McNuggets were a sales gimmick used by the McDonald's Corporation during the mid-1980s. They were essentially Chicken McNuggets sold with Asian-styled sauces. An order of six, nine or twenty Shanghai McNuggets came in a small box shaped like a Chinese food take-out box decorated with an Oriental theme. Shanghai McNuggets also came with a pair of wooden chop-sticks, one fortune cookie, and a choice of sweet and sour, teriyaki, or hot mustard sauce. Shanghai McNuggets were discontinued shortly afterwards and are no longer available.
Trivia
- The McNugget Buddies were anthropomorphic versions of McNuggets used in advertisements and promotions.
- 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 "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 (MSG) 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.
- In the British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, when the crew discover three corpses, Rimmer states, "They've got less meat on them than a Chicken McNugget." Fearing legal action, the BBC edited the reference, substituting the generic term "chicken nugget."