Recently Vancouver passed a by-law allowing residents to have live chickens on their property! What?! Hey, I love fresh eggs and love to know where my chickens come from but that just AMAZED me! Knowing my children, that would be a sure-fire way to ensure vegetarianism. Hey Jackson & Easton, if you are looking for chicken Clucky, we are having him for dinner! Bon Appétit!
I once tried to be a vegetarian, when I dated a vegetarian. We broke up when we went to a Greek restaurant and I ate lamb in front of him. He drove me promptly home on his moped and made me wear the helmet with a ‘Meat is Murder’ sticker on it! I was sure that the visit to the Cargill chicken facility would actually turn ME into the vegetarian my ex-boyfriend always wanted me to be.
Instead of insane clucking and feathers flying wildly around, I was surprised at how calm and humanely treated these soon-to-be nugget chickens were. Again, McDonalds’ thinks of everything and they made sure that they are calmed and stunned, and before you know it, bled out and on their way to nugget land. OK, I am not a vegetarian from seeing this and I know it wasn’t something that I could do for a living, I mean I hate deboning chicken breasts! I was however amazed that I didn’t vomit and still ate chicken after the tour!
I am constantly being asked about the Chicken McNuggets! Are you sure it was REAL chicken in there? Is the chicken the PRESSED chicken that you can buy in loaves?
It is REAL chicken, sorry to disappoint all of you moms out there who are thinking the worst but I must report to you that the chicken is REAL! They use chicken breast and then that chicken is cut into strips that get shredded and mixed with broth and salt and pepper. That is why the consistency is so much better than you frozen store bought brands. I find the ones you can buy in the store are dry, and flavourless.
I LOVE that they have names for the shapes because we do too, but it’s nice to know the proper names!
Bell, Ball, Boot, and Bowtie!
I know Kath, we totally called it a “boot” even before we knew it was the proper name! Love it!
Oh yes, trust me-it is REAL chicken. From start to finish, we followed the meat along the line. They do add starch to the nuggets to get a thinker consistency to the meat so the shapes can be formed for the nuggets. Tempura batter, or marinade is on the grilled ones.
Love the names for the shapes…especially the boot – it totally looks like a boot!
The standards we were talking about are the ones outlined by the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CFIA) and McDonalds clearly meets these CFIA standards and usually EXCEEDS these standard guidelines. I mean they serve 44 million pounds of it a year, so they must be doing something right!
Actually when we were at the Cargill facility, they impressed upon us how McDonalds has the HIGHEST standards, higher than even the government recommends! You can be assured that the chicken is the freshest, as it is an alive and very healthy looking chicken that is brought into Cargill. The feed used is corn & soybean, proven to produce healthy and tasty chicken and again McDonalds has very strict guidelines for a farm to be APPROVED to raise their chickens. There is nothing added to the chicken breasts, it is cut with a laser in order to be of a desired shape to fit the bun for our favourite chicken sandwiches. The only other thing that I saw added was the coating to the nuggets or a marinade for thr Santa Fe chicken, other than that it was 100% REAL chicken and that’s all!
Same sort of question as I asked with the beef. It is “real” but is it good quality? You say “they use chicken breast” but what quality and is that all they use? You just hear so much stuff that I want to clarify.