What You're Actually Eating When You Order McNuggets

the pink slime of McDonald's sounds a little like a short horror story now well for the fast-food Titan it almost was if you've been on the internet sometime in the past decade you may have come across this image the image in question is the first known instance of the pink slime controversy wherein supposedly materials suggested that McDonald's world-famous Chicken McNugget was associated with the less than appetizing paste so what exactly is the pink slime where did it come from and is it by chance a part of this dipa buil and let's find out we're looking into a mystery not telling you what is and isn't healthy if you're eating something with a label on it chances are there's a lot more information on the back on a website or on a post-it note for the cashier to read out to you a fast this is meant to be an unbiased approach to a controversial subject with that out of the way let's get into it what is a chicken nugget the product of Cornell University poultry and food science professor Robert C Baker a man whose legacy not only includes the introduction of Nuggets to the world but turkey ham and chicken hot dogs as well its regards the Nuggets Baker pioneered the process of keeping the breading attached to the portions of meat as they fried with the help of Joseph Hotchkiss who at the time served as assistant professor of food science but currently as chairman of the entire department Baker also developed a method of delivery with modified atmosphere packaging and vacuum packaging which did away with the previous method of just packing it on ice and shipping it let's fast-forward to 1981 i believe that regardless of what happens from here on out historians will recount 1981 as the year that mcdonald's introduced chicken McNuggets [Music] the thoughts start rolling out their first batch of America's favorite golden-brown snack after Tyson Foods commissioned the recipe a few years prior the first iteration of the nugget we all know today was developed by McDonald's first executive chef Renae Arend in 1979 morena you can't neither please in popular culture even from a distance you can recognize them that's because the McNugget comes in four different shapes you've got the bell the boot the ball and the bone why these four shapes well the short answer for mcdonald's is the four shapes we make chicken McNuggets in was the perfect equilibrium of dip ability and fun through an event oof you and five would have been like wacky but keeping the roster just four shapes also maintains a consistent and easily reprehensible method of cooking so on the topic of cooking what exactly is a chicken nugget made out of generally speaking it's reuler meat which can be defined as livestock bred specifically for meat production most of what you're getting in a chicken nugget is a split breast of white meat poultry don't be too alarmed by the word most though legs thighs skin or other boneless meats are also introduced to enrich flavor and add some texture after a process of grinding the meat is formed breaded and cooked not unlike a traditional meatball after that we're left with the classic image so many are familiar with the McNugget in one of its many four shapes not five that'd be crazy seems a little too simple right well there are a number of resources online that bring this process to light some go as far as inviting reputable members of the public like Mythbusters own Grant Imahara to witness firsthand the manufacturing process to those unfamiliar grant used to be a member of Mythbusters a show talked about as being influential to the scientific community particularly as an introduction for younger audiences also another part of his brand involves building robots and having them murder one another so needless to say the man's got some credibility not just as a witness but a professional so where on earth does the pink I'm fit into any of this what is this thanks grant where were we right at first glance the slime looks similar enough to a processed byproduct of mechanical separation the end result being a paste-like slurry substance mechanically separated meat however is not part of the McNugget process detailed in an article by the National chicken Council which is a lot less exciting than when I envisioned States like all meat and poultry products however mechanically separated poultry is regulated and inspected by USDA and products containing it must declare it as an ingredient on the label mechanically separated meets are common enough in the food industry but the consistency it produces is typically found in the manufacturing of products like hot dogs or Bologna not McNuggets but to clarify this method of meat processing is not the same as pink slime that's a common misconception and I hope you had your lunch about four hours ago because we're finally going to tackle that nasty goop next all right you knew we were gonna get here eventually so let's just cut to the chase the horrible sight pictured here has no trace or origin that I can report on with any good conscience it's a gross pinkish meat too without any discernible purpose kind of like me some mornings so let's get into what we can discern from the picture alone since there's nothing to cite a tor cross-reference we have only our assumptions to go on the slime comes out of a conveniently cropped out piece of machinery and little tip to any wannabe whistleblowers out there take a picture of something like a logo next time we call that a lead we've got two employees in the shot well one employee for sure I don't know where that other arm is connected to really there's a garbage can in the back and the slime is going into a cardboard box somehow I think our workers got these two instruments mixed up and that's it really I mean there's just not a lot here there's a reason why whenever this image is brought up to a PR person or manager they're just as surprised as anyone we don't know what it is or where it came from but it has nothing to do with our chicken McNuggets I don't know where that picture came from but that's not Youth and Chicken McNugget even if we entertain the idea that they're covering this up or lying to us about their knowledge it demonstrates how unimportant this photo is as a piece of evidence outside of just being visually unpleasant there's nothing to connect it to McDonald's in retrospect one could look at the pink slime controversy is a popular demonstration of the bandwagon fallacy to hop on the bandwagon is to take up a cause through influence and persuasion alone often times to the dismissal of critical information or as professor of political sociology rüdiger Schmidt Beck states in an essay on the risk of bandwagon thinking a precondition of bandwagon effects is that people accept an aggregate phenomenon beyond the realm of their personal experience which therefore cannot be directly observed as a point of reference for their own attitude and preference formation and thereby reify it as a social fact look there are plenty of reasons to feel strongly one way or another about McDonald's or their Nuggets or any idea really childhood memories could sway an opinion just as easily as an unsourced photograph it could be a documentary that brings you over the fence or a rebuttal documentary that could compel you with evidence but just as easily have you persuaded on the grounds of it being the other team you know maybe we won't be able to close the books on just what that original pink slime image is or where it came from but the context of the picture can be understood we can determine that regardless of the photos origin what it contains is as important to your happy meal as you would like it to be but on the grounds of whether or not it is in fact a Chicken McNugget I think we can definitively say that in the realm of fact-based evidence it's just pink slime you know suddenly I'm not so thirsty anymore

Channel: Brew

Views: 1,108,991

Rating: 4.8952956 out of 5

Keywords: solved mysteries, unsolved, unsolved mysteries, unsolved cases, mcdonalds chicken mcnuggets, chicken mcnuggets, mcnuggets, mcdonalds, mystery, unsolved mystery, unexplained, investigation, investigate, theory, theories, detective, detectives, unexplained mysteries, mysteries unsolved, mysteries solved, solved mystery, pink slime, pink slime mcdonald's

Id: otCptFa0Feg

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2019