A chicken nugget is a chicken product made from chicken meat which is breaded or battered, then deep-fried or baked. Fast food restaurants typically fry their nuggets in vegetable oil.
Some fast food restaurants have launched vegetarian alternatives. McDonald's served Garden McNuggets made of beans and Swedish fast food restaurant Max Hamburgare offers a dish containing nuggets made of falafel. Quorn also supplies vegetarian chicken style nuggets.
Video Chicken nugget
History
The first known iteration of the Chicken Nugget was created by Robert C. Baker, a food science professor at Cornell, and posted as unpatented academic work in a Cornell Bulletin in 1963. This bite sized piece of chicken, coated in batter and then deep fried was called the "Chicken Crispie" by Baker and his associates. Common problems the meat industry were facing at the time of this invention were being able to hold ground meat together without a skin and producing a batter that could handle being both deep fried and frozen without coming off of the desired meat. Baker was able to solve both problems by first coating the meat in vinegar, salt, grains, and milk powder to make it hold together and secondly using an egg and grain based batter that was able to be fried as well as frozen.
Maps Chicken nugget
Chicken nuggets in fast food
McDonald's is very well known for its chicken nuggets and are enjoyed throughout America. This nugget was created by Chef Rene Arend after being given the idea by Fred L. Turner. The first nugget was debuted in Arkansas in 1983.There are considered to be 4 shapes of McDonald's chicken nuggets: bell, bone, ball, and boot.
Burger king is also well known for their chicken nuggets. Their nuggets are made with white meat and coated in a home style seasoned breading.
Chic-FIl-A also sells chicken nuggets. Theirs are made up of white meat. They are seasoned and cooked in 100% refined oil.
Wendy's sold both regular and spicy nuggets for a time, but recently discontinued the spicy variety. This was not received well by the general public, causing the creation of a petition online to attempt to change the fast food giants choice.
Health Facts
Chicken nuggets are generally regarded as a fatty, unhealthy food. A study published in the American Journal of Medicine analyzed the composition of chicken nuggets from 2 different American fast food chains. The study found that less than half of the material was skeletal muscle, with fat occurring in equal or greater quantities. Other components included epithelial tissue, bone, nervous tissue, and connective tissue. The authors concluded that "Chicken nuggets are mostly fat, and their name is a misnomer."
Recommended Daily Calorie Intake by Gender and Age Based on Activity Level
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided a table of the average recommended caloric intake based on age, gender, and level of physical activity.
Nutritional Value of Chicken Nuggets
Fast Food Chicken Nuggets
There are many forms of chicken nuggets, and different cooking methods which may effect the nutritional value. The table below represents the nutritional values of a single serving of McDonald's Chicken Nuggets.
Below is a table representing the caloric and fat content of other common fast food chicken strips/nuggets
Tyson Frozen Chicken Nuggets Baked
The following is a representation of the nutritional value of Tyson's oven-made Chicken Breast
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Common manufacturing practices
The process of turning chickens into nuggets is separated into three main sections: pre-slaughter, slaughter and evisceration, and further processing. Before slaughter the chickens are starved for up to 12 hours to empty their bowels and reduce contamination risk during processing. They are caught at night by trained handlers and put into layered cages on trucks to be moved to the processing location. Red light is used to illuminate working areas during this phase as it causes the chickens less stress, leading to easier working conditions and higher quality meat.
Once at the plant they are hung upside down by their legs on a moving belt of shackles. The chickens head is passed through a water filled plastic trough with an electrical current running through it. In the EU this electric bath is typically used to kill the birds, but in the USA this is used only to stun them. The bird is then killed by cut to the jugular and carotid or decapitation. This can be done manually or by heavy machinery, but if the latter is used an attendant must be on site to quickly kill any birds that may survive the automatic slaughter process. The birds are allowed to bleed for roughly two minutes before being moved to the next stage of production. Bleed times are allowed to vary based on the size of the bird. The blood is collected for use in other products, namely blood meal. The carcasses are passed through one or more baths of boiling water for two minutes at a time in order to soft the skin and make defeathering easier. Two temperatures are commonly used in poultry processing. The first, referred to as a soft scald, is around 125° F (69.4° C) and produces a yellow colored meat while keeping a layer of skin intact. This is used for chickens sold whole or other products without breading or other coating. The second scalding temperature is 145° F (80.5° C) and is referred to as a hard scald. This produces a more white colored meat and is used in most processed poultry products, such as chicken nuggets. The chicken carcass is then defeathered by a machine that spins numerous metal strips covered in textured rubber against the body, forcibly knocking off most of the feathers. These strips are often positioned at various angles to remove feathers from a specific part of the carcass. Any feathers that remain on the body are burned off, and all usable feathers are collected and shipped away for further processing. This process is sometimes violent enough to break bone resulting in a lower quality meat. The head and legs are then removed before the carcass is hung on a new set of shackles for internal organ removal. In the United States the slaughtering and evisceration process must be separated by a wall in order to prevent possible contamination of equipment and product. Once re-hung the oil gland is removed from the base of the tail, along with the rest of the internal organs. This is done by a series of machines designed to remove specific parts of the chicken, or by hand, depending on the size of the operation. Both the innards and carcass are then inspected by whomever the controlling health standards allow, which can range from factory employees to government appointed officials.
Once deemed high enough quality to eat the meat is transferred to a third production line where it is deboned, cut, and shaped into the correct size. This is done manually, by a series of automatic blades, or by a process called grinding. Grinding is a method of deboning in which the softer parts of the chicken carcass are forced through a mesh, leaving behind the more solid pieces, resulting in a meat paste. If used, this paste is then shaped before battering. The pieces are battered and breaded in a large cylindrical drum that rotates, evenly coating all of the pieces in the desired spices and breading. The pieces are then fried in oil until the batter has set and the outside reaches the desired color. Finally the nuggets are packaged, frozen and stored for shipping. While specific ingredients and production methods may vary between manufacturers, the above practices hold true for most of the industry.
Pop culture
Chicken nuggets have been the subject of food challenges, social media phenomena, and many more forms of public notoriety. Thomas Welborn holds the world record for eating the most chicken nuggets in 3 minutes, of which he ate 746 grams (roughly 42 chicken nuggets). The most retweeted tweet of 2017 was made by Carter Wilkerson who asked Wendy's what it would take for a year of free nuggets. The tweet generated over 3.5 million retweets, nowhere near Wendy's' required 18 million, however the company still gave him free nuggets for a year, as well as donating money to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. A Philadelphia Phillies fan promised by tweet to buy everyone nuggets if a player hit a home run in the upcoming game, which he did. The fan, Damon Miller, made good on his promise by passing out nuggets to fans at the next game. The poultry dish has inspired gourmet restaurants , exercise routines, and even feature length productions, including Cooties (film), a movie about a grade school child who eats a chicken nugget infected with a virus that turns pre-pubescent children into zombies.
See also
- Chicken fingers
- Chicken fries
- Meat slurry
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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