I had a friend who related the following story of the source of McNuggets and other ‘mechanically separated meat’:
They take a whole chicken, defeather it, remove all meat that can be sold (breast, back, etc) and remove the innards. The remaining carcass is then inserted into an auger which forces the ‘meat’ through a set of plates where the product is extruded through a slot roughly the size of a coin slot.
He lead me to believe that he was telling the truth by saying that he actually worked at such a facility, and that McD had rejected a batch of ‘product’ because the fat level was too low. To this day, I am leary of any food product that has the ingredient listed as “Mechanically separated meat”.
This made sense to me because of the 4 shapes that nuggets appear in the box.
Mmmmm the meat packing industry and McDonalds. Two industries I try and know as little about as possible. But, sometimes I have to slow down as I pass the train wreck. From a USDA site that dealt with hotdogs I give you the following paragraphs:
is somehow reconciled with these paragraphs a few lines up
Now go home and read the Jungle. Mmmmm sausages. Or how about a little Soylent Green?
I don’t know for certain how exactly they do it, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t something like you describe. McDonald’s is cheap. That means that they have to use cheaper cuts of meat. Just think of how they serve their beef: Ground up and pressed back together so you can’t tell what part of the cow it came from, and everybody knows that they do that! How is mechanically separated chicken any better or worse than ground beef?
That book, by far, is one of the biggest arguements for vegetarianism (although Sinclair wrote it as an arguement for Unions and a complaint against the labor laws of the time), just in its description of what goes on inside of those slaughterhouses. I’m sure it’s a little better today than it was at the turn of the century, but not by that much.
Although I don’t find McNuggets appetizing, I’m not really horrified by this process. I think I’d actually be more disturbed if they just threw the carcasses away.
After all, a good soup stock is made from essentially the same ingredients.
So far as chicken/turkey stock goes, you get the flavour out of the bones, but not eat them. Mind you, if it’s good enough for a dog…
gonna get a drink of water from the toilet now…
[hijacking my own post]
There was a show on TV about strange food from around the world, and one of the items was boiled sheeps head. They just skinned it and threw it in a stock pot. When it was ready the prefered way of serving it was to put it on a plate. About 3 men then started in on it, breaking into the skull with spoons and eating the brains. They were quite enjoying it and the reaction of the camera crew. One of the crew then asked how it was.
“Oh, it’s very good.”
“Do you eat all the brains?”
“Oh, yes, the brains are very very good, and good for you.”
“Do you eat the eyes?”
Looks of disbelief and laughter, “No! I have enough eyes…two is enough”
They were quite grossed out at the thought of eating the eyes, but relished the brains.
I did see a report sometime later from Iceland, and a fellow had packed a picnic lunch of eyes…
[/hijacking my own post]
If you read the quote by Rhythmdvl, you’ll notice that the process “separates bones from edible tissue.” That is, it’s a process for removing the bones from the stuff that gets eaten.
You must admit, Americans are labeled as wasteful. Well, would a wasteful society go through all that trouble to get all usable ‘meat’ off of a chicken (only to use so much packaging that we end up using aobut ten times as much landfill space?)
Well, my question sort of lost itself, so I’ll say this. McDonald’s is evil. That’s all.
Ahh, the joys of living in an urbanized wealthy modern society. Way back when (several decades in this neck of the woods), when people were poor, lived in the countryside and walked uphill both ways to school, there was no squeamishness about throttling chickens, slaughtering pigs and cattle, and using every last bit of the carcass. Shoot, still happens today.
I’m a huge fan of scrapple. Then, across the pond, there’s haggis and blood sausage. Tongue, anyone? Marrow is a delicacy everywhere (well, everywhere but this household). And as has been noted, chicken carcasses make chicken stock (while I strain mine, the gelatin and what not add a mouthfeel you don’t get from Campbell’s). I think most of American society thinks chickens have four breasts (or is it two?) which come in a styrofoam package wrapped in plastic.
And besides, without McNuggets we’d be overrun by chicken thighs since Americans by far prefer white meat.
None of this is to say I’m a fan of Chicken McNuggets.
Headcheese. Made from the entire head of a pig (sans eyeballs, ears optional), my grandparents loved this stuff but I just can’t see it. Whilst my brother, a chef in the French tradition, loves tongue and brain. Thrifty maybe but… Blech.
Seems like it’s mostly a matter of individual taste…(or a lack thereof).
I had heard a while back that the ingredients for McNuggets are chicken and skin. The strange part is that there was no mention as to the origin of the skin…
or western, either way I guess I’m just snobby when it comes to eating stuff that seems inedible to me in its natural form. I’ve tried tongue (Granddad slipped me the tongue when visiting England, bad idea considering BSE) and did not particularly enjoy it. Obviously ther are no negative impacts of it since there have been no McNuggets Inquiries. I suspect we’re more at risk from chemical additives that have been engineered (think Clark Griswald).
Smeghead - I read rhythmdvls post carefully before I posted. “Meat” can not contain too much calcium (separated from the bone), or it will be classed as “Mechanically Separated” (carcass paste). It was the ‘Mechanically Separated’ that I winced at.
It’s all a matter of individual taste. Personally, I love McNuggets while I almost never partake of the “breast of chicken and nothing else” nuggets that other fast-food joints turn out. I have long held that the flavor increase that led me to prefer McNuggets was the addition of beaks and feet. It’s the little things that make me happy. Yuuummmm.
I’ve never been a big fan of meat-from-a-can, but what really did it for me was reading the ingredients of a can of Pork Brains in Milk Gravy. Included in the list were such things as partially defatted pork fatty tissue.
Alaskan natives consider fish eyes to be a delicacy. They’re %100 grisle after all.
“…it’s a process for removing the bones from the stuff that gets eaten.”
But not with no "…more than 150 milligrams (mg) of calcium per 100 grams product (within a tolerance of 30 mg. of calcium). Products that exceed the calcium content limit must be labeled ‘mechanically separated beef or pork [or poultry by extrapolation]’ in the ingredients statement.
[hijack] “Americans by far prefer white meat.”
I heard this recently on NPR and how the Georgia farmers are all excited about being able to sell chicken in Cuba soon. I prefer the dark meat and I have no understanding as to what the rest of American could possibly like in the white meat. [/hijack]
The disgusting thing about McNuggets is that the throw 'em back if there’s not enough fat in 'em. It’s disgusting and unhealthy. Are they trying to kill their customers or what?
