McDonald’s bites back at chicken McNugget critics

By Jenny Eagle

- Last updated on GMT

McDonald's chicken McNuggets
McDonald's chicken McNuggets

Related tags Meat

McDonald’s has hit back at critics of its chicken McNuggets who claim its product is made from a ‘pink slime’ of mechanically separated chicken.

Its You Tube clip showing Amanda Straw, deboning stakeholder, Cargill Limited, Canada, cutting the meat off a chicken has received thousands of hits this week.

It shows how workers remove breast meat from slaughtered chickens before it is ground or minced with chicken skin, and turned into nuggets.

McDonald's released the footage to set the record straight on how it makes the product and took a film crew to the Cargill production facility in Ontario where the nuggets are produced then shipped to its outlets across Canada.

Straw separates the bones from the meat and says that McDonald's uses the breast meat for nuggets but the wings and drumsticks do not go into the products.

With bones on one side and meat on the other, she adds: “This is what we do use, and this is what we don't​.

You've got your white meat, breast and tenders, used for things like nuggets or grilled​.

Then you've got dark meat and thighs, and a little bit of skin is used in some of our products​.”

In another clip, Nicoletta Stefou, supply chain manager, McDonald’s Canada, takes viewers on a tour of the factory and shows the nugget making process from the time they are prepared up until the time that they are packaged and shipped.

She starts the video by saying that she has absolutely no idea where the photo of pink goo came from and that it has absolutely nothing to do with their chicken nuggets.

I'm here today at Cargill to answer a question we received from Armand in Edmonton, Alberta," ​she said.

Armand asks: "What are legitimately in McNuggets? Is there pink goop​?".

It's an image that's often associated with McDonald's and it's a question that gets asked a lot.

We don't know what it is or where it came from, but it has nothing to do with our chicken McNuggets. But I want you to see for yourself​.”

Related topics Food Safety & Quality

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