Answering The Question – Are McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets Made With Real Chicken?
McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets are often a children’s favourite when you visit the fast food restaurant McDonald’ and then as adults we question – are McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets made from real chicken.
The answer is something really interesting to understand and Grant Imahara from How It’s Made have done a great video at the Tyson Foods in Tennessee. In the video Amy Steward, the Principal Meat Scientist, MS, CCS at Tyson food shows how Chicken McNuggets are made for McDonald’s.
Only chicken meat, NO beaks or feet :-)
Carefully selected areas of the chicken are cut on a production line removing only the meat required to make a McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets.
The meat is very heavily ground into a pulp to create the texture that makes them unique.
All of the ingredients are then mixed together in this machine.
You can see the Nuggets taking shape as they enter the batter machine.
What are the ingredients of Chicken McNuggets®?
From the McDonald’s website they explain that Chicken McNuggets®® are made from 100% chicken breast meat.
However, as a percentage of the total recipe when the batter, seasoning and oil to cook the nuggets are taken into account, chicken meat constitutes 45% of the total Chicken McNugget®, the other ingredients account for the additional 55% which from the video is spot on.
McDonald’s also provide links to important information including full ingredient declaration for all food (including our burgers) served in the U.K. and their online nutritional calculator tool.
You can also download the Allergen Booklet.
You can see the Nuggets are partially cooked in the manufacturing process and then the cooking is completed at the restaurant.
