In honor of our first President’s 280th birthday last week, I thought I would share a kitschy story I read online. A woman in Nebraska found a McDonald’s Chicken McNugget that she claims looks like George Washington. She is trying to hawk the THREE year old McNugget on EBay to raise money for a summer church camp. Last bid I saw was for $356! Good for her… better that she auctions it off as a piece of history than actually eats it!
This little prize piece of journalism reminded of another recent article I read about Chicken McNuggets. If you’ve ever seen Fast Food Nation or Supersize Me, perhaps this won’t seem like such shocking news to you, but there isn’t much chicken in a Chicken McNugget.
McDonald’s website describes their McNuggets as “made with white meat, lightly coated in a tempura batter to ensure that they are crispy on the outside, and juicy and tender in the inside.” Doesn’t sound so bad right? What’s wrong with a little white meat chicken and a little breading?
McDonald’s goes on to tout its Chicken McNuggets as a healthy choice, calling them “food to feel good about.”
Actually, not so much.
I did a little digging, and I don’t think you will be feeling so good about McNuggets when you discover what’s in them. They are really about 50% minced chicken meat and about 50% “other stuff” -- including corn fillers, sugars, leavening agents and SYNTHETIIC ingredients.
You have to dig pretty deep on the McDonald’s website to find a specific list of ingredients for their McNuggets. The following list of ingredients for Chicken McNuggets is taken directly from the McDonald’s website:
"White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid), sodium phosphates, natural flavor (botanical source). Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dextrose, corn starch.
Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent."
No wonder McDonald’s doesn’t make this easy to find! In case you skimmed over that list of ingredients like McDonald’s is hoping you did, I thought I’d point out some of the highlights:
TBHQ is a chemical preservative and a form of butane. That’s right, the same butane you find in a cigarette lighter. According to a Consumer’s Guide to Food Additives, “one gram of TBHQ can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse. Five grams can kill you.”
Dimethylpolysiloxane is an anti-foaming agent made of silicone. It is a form of petroleum and is often used in cosmetics and fun toys like silly putty. I don’t know about you, but I definitely think a little petroleum is the perfect addition to my hamburger and fries!
Please don’t be alarmed if you were planning to hit the drive through tonight… McDonald’s assures us in a press release that “the use of these ingredients has been approved for many years by government food safety authorities and regulatory agencies around the world, such as the U.S. FDA.”
Well, that makes me feel a lot better. I cannot tell you how reassured I am to learn that my government is A-OK with petroleum and butane in our fast food.
Having said all this, I totally get that you are busy and sometimes you cannot resist the convenience of the drive-thru. You’ve had a long day, traffic is a nightmare, the kids are screaming, everyone is hungry, and you haven’t even thought about what to make for dinner. Maybe you just picked up the kids from dance practice or Little League and its getting late and they still have homework to do. You’ve got limited time and limited resources and suddenly, the golden arches are in view… “Just this once” you tell yourself… for the fourth time this month.
We’ve all been there. I know that even with the best of intentions, it is nearly impossible to get a homemade meal on the table every day. While I would really like to, I am not going to suggest that you NEVER eat fast food again. But an indulgence in fast food should not be a regular occurrence; it should be the rare exception to the rule.
The norm should be preparing our own food at home with real, whole food ingredients. If you’ve read some of my blog posts before, you are familiar with my opinions about what constitutes healthy eating. If not, please go back and check out some of them out here and here and here. Do yourself and your family a favor and start making home-cooked meals.
And for those days when you simply don’t have time and need something quick, try my “go-to” fast food meal - a hot rotisserie chicken and some veggies. Practically every grocery store in America carries both already prepared. No, you cannot eat rotisserie chicken in the car, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Take it home, sit down at the table, slow down and enjoy your food.
Unfortunately we’ve gotten pretty far away from that – and our health has suffered as a result. I really believe we can turn that around. Once you get in the habit, it is a lot easier to pass up the golden arches for a nutritious homemade meal. Believe me when I say, you and your family will be “lovin’ it!”
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