Nerd Mentality

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a fascinating book that details the changing eating habits of Americans. I can't recommend it highly enough. It explains how, over the last 30 years, we have become a nation that eats vast quantities of corn – much more so than Mexicans, the original "corn people."

Most folks assume that a chicken nugget is just a piece of fried chicken, right? Wrong! Did you know, for example, that a McDonald's Chicken McNugget is 56% corn?

What else is in a McDonald's Chicken McNugget? Besides corn, and to a lesser extent, chicken, The Omnivore's Dilemma describes all of the thirty-eight ingredients that make up a McNugget – one of which I'll bet you'll never guess. During this part of the book, the author has just ordered a meal from McDonald's with his family and taken one of the flyers available at McDonald's called "A Full Serving of Nutrition Facts: Choose the Best Meal for You." These two paragraphs are taken directly from The Omnivore's Dilemma:

"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."



Bet you never thought that was in your chicken McNuggets!

http://www.alnyethelawyerguy.com/al_nye_the_lawyer_guy/2007/03/so_what_really_.html

*No fudge jokes*

Xavius

And precisely why we shouldn't eat at McDonalds.

Agreed, wonder whats in their other foods.

ChaosAngel999

Do you guys realize we probably ingest more Gold in a year than the TBHQ in all the nuggets served everyday? This is why I hate these OMG POISONS IN OUR FOOD things. Notice how it says .02% of the OIL in a McNugget. A single McNugget is probably around 10 g. 65% of that is water. 25% is solid mass. That leaves 10% oil. 1 g of oil equates to .0002 g of TBHQ. That means you would have to eat 5000 McNuggets to even START to feel the effect of it. 5000 McNuggets is a little over 208,333 Calories. No one could eat that much in one day, so the liver could easily take care off what little there is.

Seriously, if you guys are worried about some insignificant amount of poisonous things in McDonald's food rather than the sheer Calories you're eating, I'd stop drinking the ethanol most of you are drinking everyday.

Coconut

Wow, an explanation after all these years why Chicken McNuggets give me diarrhea.

Aipotu

mcnuggets are good with honey

Aw damnit, now I want to try that.
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Chickenut

Pretty sure it's the spineless chickens they breed that make the Nuggets.

Well you need the beak, entrails and claws, anyway.
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I was young and confused and your mom didn't want me around no more. Now pass me dem damn collard greens!

KeyserSoze

COUSCOUS FTW. It owns Tofu's ass, Daisy.

doesn't have anything to do with tofu....
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Shortdude123

mcdonalds nuggets are so good

mcdonalds. is so good!
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PlayMore

I've not eaten juck food since 2002

I havent had a banana in a month.

Stellar

I havent had a banana in a month.

lol jim gaffigan
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HNB

Anytime I eat McDonalds I throw up.

It had been years since my last McDonalds outing, and that was on purpose. That place is disgusting. Then a few months ago they had the Mario toys in their happy meals so me and a friend went. "I can finish a happy meal and be ok," I thought.

So me and my friend go in and both order happy meals like the real men we are. We're both pumped to see what toys we got but as it turns out they had just stopped the Nintendo toys so we got some lame ass Bionicle bullshi*. We both ate the happy meals.


I threw up later that day.

pussy
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Imp

Why would anyone go to McDonalds instead of Wendy's or a real hotdog/burger place?

too few and far between.
McDonald's is at every corner.
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