People love themselves some McDonald's chicken McNuggets.
But where exactly did the McNugget come from, how has it changed over the years, and what
is it… really?
It's time to answer some questions on these popular chicken bites, and look at what's
next for the nugget.
Just as McDonald's was hitting its stride with burgers and on the way to becoming a
global sensation, people started getting beef-phobia.
By the early 1960s, the American public became a little wary of beef because of the health
conditions associated with it.
Words like "cholesterol," "saturated fat," and "heart disease," were new buzzwords, beef
was the boogieman, and understandably, this didn't sit well with McDonald's.
But by the late 1970s, they had a new secret weapon: chef Rene Arend, a man who once had
the privilege of cooking for the Queen of England.
After Ray Kroc suggested shifting the focus to a new side item, a bite-sized onion nugget,
chairman of the board Fred Turner pitched the idea of a chicken nugget.
Arend got to work.
Just five months later, in 1983, a McNugget prototype hit Tennessee locations and smashed
all expectations.
But… why did this gourmet chef turn out something that's admittedly less-than-gourmet?
He later confessed:
'"We have to cater to the American public.
I am 31 years here, nearly as long as McDonald's.
I have also become Americanized."
Chef Rene once described making the McNugget like this:
"In food, you invent nothing.
You 'create'.
In 'my' kitchen, I create the McNugget this way: I debone a breast and a thigh.
A little salt, a little flour.
[...] but when you are cooking for the masses, it is different."
Just how different has been an issue plaguing McDonald's for years.
The infamous, nauseating photo of purportedly pre-nugget pink slime swept through the internet
in 2010 and McDonald's responded to the photo, saying:
"We do not use the process known as mechanically separated chicken, nor do our Chicken McNuggets
ever at any point, look like this photo."
A press release isn't always convincing, though, especially coupled with a 2013 study that
found many commercially sold chicken nuggets contained only about 50 percent meat.
The rest?
A hodgepodge of
"ground up bone, blood vessels, nerve, and connective tissue."
While the companies selling these questionable nuggets were not named, it's easy to see how
this study might ruffle the feathers of McDonald's, who sprang into action with the "Our Food.
Your Questions."
campaign.
Some customers were assured by the campaign, others were definitely not.
Sales continued to drop in 2015.
If you assumed that McNuggets were just plopped out of the McNugget machine in some random
shape, you should know nothing is farther from the truth.
Other chains might have random chicken nugget shapes, but the Golden Arches has four precise
shapes of McNuggets.
Those shapes even have special names to identify them: the "ball," the "boot," the "bow-tie,"
and the "bell."
According to McDonald's, the four shapes were chosen as:
"the perfect equilibrium of dipability and fun.
Three would've been too few.
Five would've been, like, wacky."
Now you know!
In 2012, 23 bidders competed to win a three-year-old chicken McNugget because they believed it
resembled George Washington.
The only thing more stupifying than people trying to outbid each other for an old chicken
nugget is that the winning bid was $8,100.
Considering that McNuggets come in four distinct shapes, one that sorta looks like a fried
George Washington is a little odd.
The bidding started at a respectable $100, but after multiple news outlets picked up
the story bids began rolling in.
The good news is that it was all for charity.
The bad news?
Ultimately, the winning bidder backed out of the deal.
In 2014, world record-holding athlete Usain Bolt stopped by The Arsenio Hall Show, and
shared a bit of his Olympic diet plan.
“Mostly chicken nuggets."
“It worked!”
During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bolt reportedly ate at least 1,000 chicken McNuggets.
Bolt, who was 22 at the time, hit up a McDonald's every chance he got and later wrote in his
memoir, Faster Than Lightning:
"At first I ate a box of 20 for lunch, then another for dinner.
The next day I had two boxes for breakfast, one for lunch and then another couple in the
evening."
The Jamaican gold medalist estimated that over the course of 10 days he ate at least
100 McNuggets a day.
That's around 47,500 calories' worth of McNuggets, total, in case you were wondering.
McDonald's has some serious competition in the chicken game, and most comes from Chick-fil-A.
Part of trying to stay ahead of the game includes their 2017 promise to stop serving poultry
with antibiotics and remove artificial preservatives from McNuggets and other items.
There's plenty of places making that commitment, but they also rolled out Southern-style chicken
that looks very, very similar to their Chick-fil-A inspiration.
Chick-fil-A claims that their nuggets are all hand-breaded at each store, so they could
still have McDonald's beat in that department.
Considering that people are eating more beef than chicken, it's probably wise for McDonald's
to refocus on improving their McNuggets.
What's next for these classic favorites?
Only time will tell.