Poll: "Ingredients in a Chicken McNugget" or "You Want me to Eat What Now?"

[Deathsong17]

Just be frank with me. What is the ONE THING you hate about McDonalds, as a company, as an entity, the part of your perception that it occupies, what's the first negative word about them that pops into your head.

Just one word, what is it:

Hungry.

McDonalds, or any fast food parlour I've been to, are the only places where I can have a full sized meal with dessert and leave still hungry.

 

[Solstrana91]

I know all these things, yet I still continue to buy the twenty boxes, along with quaterpounders and large fries.
Also, am I the only one who finds the word "McNuggets" absolutely hilarious?

 

[Treblaine]

Just be frank with me. What is the ONE THING you hate about McDonalds, as a company, as an entity, the part of your perception that it occupies, what's the first negative word about them that pops into your head.

Just one word, what is it:

Hungry.

McDonalds, or any fast food parlour I've been to, are the only places where I can have a full sized meal with dessert and leave still hungry.

The company is Hungry?

Well, maybe you mean "un-fulfilling" which is weird because named potion sizes (medium vs Medium) are larger in McDonalds than their main competitor of Burger King. You get more bang for your buck.

I have no idea how you can eat a meal like that and still be hungry. That word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Maybe you just lack the feeling of satisfaction of eating what you perceive as "real food" or something.

Is the word you are struggling for possibly: "unsatisfying"?

 

[Zorg Machine]

Because, at the very core of all human beings, I believe that we simply don't give a fuck.

Sometimes we might get passionate about something and keep being passionate about it our entire lives but still, wouldn't you rather just sit down and enjoy the feeling of not caring?

 

[archvile93]

Every type of food is bad for you if you really think about it. Maybe all the bad stuff just ends up balancing each other out. Like the bacteria living inside us that's usually harmless if there's a proper balance.

I would argue with that premise. Of course any food can be bad for you if you eat too much of it, we as omnivores evolved to eat a wide variety of foods, and we need a wide variety of nutrients to sustain our bodies. We also know that the high rates of cancer, diabetes, and other disease of affluence that are seen in the US and other industrialized countries correlate to a huge extent with our consumption of processed foods, and the Chicken McNugget is really kind of the poster child for processed foods. The implication then is that the industrialized foods that we eat here are worse for us than the whole foods that we evolved to be eating a wide variety of. And there's good reason to believe that it's true, third world countries that eat food produced with more traditionally agrarian methods have much lower rates of cancer, diabetes, and other diseases of affluence than Americans and other industrialized countries do. It doesn't just balance out, we are, undeniably, getting the short end of the stick when we eat these foods.

Since you keep bringing up this correlation thing I feel the need to point this out. Correlation does NOT equal causation.

 

[EmzOLV]

I worked in guitar shops for years. We have guitar polish which has carnauba wax in it, makes things nice and shiny. It's also used in shoe polishes, car polishes, surfboard wax, blah blah.

It's also used to make sweets like Nerds all glossy.
Me and my friend thought it was funny, everytime we had sweets with carnauba in it we would say we're not eating it cos we want to, we're keeping our stomachs looking pimp.

 

[Colour Scientist]

All food is bad for you when you have it in excess, even too much water is bad for you.
Everything in moderation. Eating a few chicken nuggets every few months probably isn't going to kill you.
If you eat them every day then I don't think the lighter fluid is your biggest worry.

 

[trophykiller]

it tastes good: simple as that. i honestly dont like McDonald's nuggets OR fries. Ya, I'm a wierd one.

It's sad how our lives are slowly being encroached upon by companies, realizing that we are dependent on many things, then taking advantage of that. Seed producers do it, Walmart does it, tons of companies do it.

Example: have you ever tried to buy an e-tool? you may have found after a while that the head came off. guess what? It's designed to. they used to put screws in so it wouldn't do that, but then someone(probably named snidley whiplash) at the shovel company probably said "hey, I got an idea, why dont we take those screws out so it WILL break, forcing them to buy another one."

I'm not trying to sound like a hippy about this, and honestly it's because I expect a post-apocalypse sometime in the next century, and want to survive it. Being so dependent on companies is not increasing our chances.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

Here are the ingredients in Australian Mcnuggets according to the website.

Chicken, Water, Flour (Maize, Bleached Wheat), Salt, Canola oil, Thickener (1404), Raising Agents and Mineral
Salts (341, 451, 450, 500, 541, 551, 327), Whey (Milk), Spice, Wheat Starch.
Contains gluten & milk Note: McNuggets are cooked in canola oil blend.

Sounds pretty normal compared to other "artificial" foods, though I spose the thickener and salts don't go far to explaining what they are specifically.

If Australia uses the following system, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_additives,_Codex_Alimentarius then the codes mean:

Thickener 1404 - Oxidised Starch

Raising Agents and Salts:
341 - Calcium Phosphate
451 - triphosphates
450 - diphosphates
500 - sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate
541 - sodium aluminium phosphate
551 - silicon dioxide
327 - calcium lactate

Interesting system. Saves on printing space for ingredients lists, and I suppose if you're looking out for a particular additive (allergy, preference, etc) it's probably easier to remember the number code than the name.

 

[deadxero]

You think this is unique to chicken nuggets? Look at the label on any piece of prepackeged food and you'll see words that require an undergrad degree to understand.

That sais, the degree of danger a substance poses depends on the amount ingested. Take salt for example. The body needs it to survive as it is the primary electrolyte that allows our nervous system to function. To little, you die. Too much you die.

It's all about quantity. Many substances that sound nasty are virtually harmless under certain amounts/concentration levels.

 

[Hosker]

Good thing I only eat quarter pounders with cheese.

No onions and pickles (I'm just seeing if others eat the same thing, though I used to get DQP w/ Cheese)?

I just take out the gherkin after I get it.

 

[VanityGirl]

I'm not a huge fast food eater myself, but this "information" is incomplete.

The amount of chicken nuggets you would have to eat in order for your body to get poisoned by the additives you mentioned is a lot. A rough estimate from me is that you'd probably need to eat somewhere in the ball park of 4-5 pounds of nuggets in a DAY for this to become a concern.(It could be more, I'm not a math major, I'm a med student XD) If I eat one 10 piece nugget and some fries, I'm full.

Also, most frozen foods, canned and boxed foods you get from a grocery store will have similar "dangerous" substances in them. The only time these substances become dangerous is if you ingest too much of them and too much meaning an unusually high amount.

Caffeine is even bad for you in large amounts, but people haven't stopped drinking, energy drinks, sports drinks, sodas, teas, coffees, ect. And if you must know why caffeine is bad it is a diuretic. Diurectic's make your body want to urinate, so if you keep ingesting caffeine, it could be VERY bad for you because your body won't have time to fully rid itself of its toxins. Our body naturally makes an antidurectic, but if we keep ingesting a durectic, our body won't be able to keep up with the antidurectic need.

I tell you this because even in all natural foods, you're going to find toxins. That diuretic I mentioned, yeah that's NATURALLY found in melons, asparagus, parsley and celery. (There's more, but those are off the top of my head).

So kids, enjoy your nuggets, just try not to eat them by the pound.

 

[Marowit]

Why would anyone eat these lumps of ultra-processes meat?

That's an easy question to answer: They're cheap, they're easy to eat and taste good.

That is why fast food chains are popular.

Chicken McNuggets are tasty. So I eat them.

Problem?

EDIT: There is a government allowable amount of PUS in milk and milk products. Do you expect me to stop drinking milk? We eat gross things all the time, but since most of them are tasty and don't outright kill us, we (the people of the United States)are fine with it, and so should you.

There is a difference between pus and carcinogenic man-made chemicals. Pus, while gross, is relatively benign - it is mostly dead cells and immune-system cells. The reason for allowable amounts is because pus correlates with bacterial infection - more pus, more bacteria and the less likely you are to get it all cleared out with pasteurization. Also, pus in milk comes from Mastitis which is pretty much unavoidable with factory-scale-production diary farms. So if you feel the need to avoid it it's pretty easy to.

 

[DAOWAce]

I honestly don't care if it's bad for me as long as it doesn't kill me.

Au contraire, it is killing you, it's just not doing so based on your view. I wish more people would realize this.

@OP: I remember reading an article about this a few weeks ago. I can't find it right now, but I found something relevant to it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/mechanically-separated-meat-chicken-mcnugget-photo_n_749893.html

Surprisingly enough I get a lot of my current health articles from following Nutiva on Twitter. I really recommend doing so if you want some bite sized chunks of health (and nature) articles.

 

[smithy_2045]

This thread makes me wish I had chicken nuggets for dinner.