Delicious – maybe. Healthy – almost certainly not. A new study into the fast food that has almost all kids drooling showed that chicken nuggets are basically made of fat, skin, connective tissue, blood vessels and bone fragments.
Researchers in the US, who chose examples from two well-known fast food chains, admitted to being gobsmacked.
“I was floored,” medicine and paediatrics professor Richard deShazo said. “I had read what other reports have said is in them, and I didn’t believe it. I was astonished actually seeing it under the microscope.”
DeShazo worked on the study with Steven Bigler, a pathologist at Baptist Health Systems in Jackson, Mississippi, who stained, fixed, sliced and analysed the nugget sections.
Bigler found in nuggets from the two different chains that the level of chicken meat was low compared to the amount of chicken parts used.
Being such an unhealthy option, De Shazo expressed concern that nuggets are branded with children in mind.
“What has happened is that some companies have chosen to use an artificial mixture of chicken parts rather than low-fat chicken white meat, batter it up and fry it and still call it chicken! It is really a chicken by-product high in calories, salt, sugar and fat that is a very unhealthy choice. Even worse, it tastes great, kids love it and it is marketed to them,” he said.
The National Chicken Council (NCC), however, stressed that these were only two examples of many nuggets that can be found on the market, maintaining they are a “great” source of protein for children, especially “picky eaters”.
“Pass the battered connective tissue, dear…”
