14 DAY TRIAL // There is surprisingly little chicken in chicken nuggets, researchers argue in a paper published in last month's issue of the American Journal of Medicine.
On the other hand, chicken nuggets appear to contain lots of fat and traces of bones, blood vessels, nerves, even connective tissue.
This fairly disturbing conclusion was reached after a team of specialists with the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Baptist Medical Center took the time to pin down the “ingredients” used to make chicken nuggets sold by two national fast food chains in the US.
For the time being, the researchers have not released the name of these fast food chains.
“Chicken nuggets have become a major component of the American diet. We sought to determine the current composition of this highly processed food,” the specialists offered as an explanation for their decision to look into this issue.
“Randomly selected nuggets from 2 different national fast food chains were fixed in formalin, sectioned and stained for microscopic analysis,” they detailed on the methodology they used.
Dr. Richard D. deShazo of the University of Mississippi Medical Center says that the chicken nuggets sold by the first of these fast food chains “[were] composed of approximately 50% skeletal muscle, with the remainder composed primarily of fat, with some blood vessels and nerve present.”
According to Business Insider, the nuggets from the other fast food chains contained 40% skeletal muscle, fat, connective tissue, and bone.
“Striated muscle (chicken meat) was not the predominate component in either nugget. Fat was present in equal or greater quantities along with epithelium, bone, nerve, and connective tissue,” the researchers concluded.
“Chicken nuggets are mostly fat, and their name is a misnomer,” they went on to say.
By the looks of it, what worriers the researchers the most is the fact that chicken nuggets are often marketed as a healthy food option. They hope that, in light of these findings, people will think twice before eating some.