Exposing McDonalds: "Chicken" Nuggets

When you think of McDonalds, there's a good chance you think of the golden arches, comical characters, Ronald McDonalds, clowns, happy childhoods (or not?), and particularly addictive food. You may also think of the movie "Supersize Me", in which an individual ate McDonalds food for thirty days straight--and suffered. Suffered badly. The words "obesity epidemic" may even come to mind. But the next time you hear someone talking about McDonalds chicken nuggets, I want you to know what, exactly these economic imperialists at McDonalds are trying to pass off as chicken.

So, at this point you're wondering: What exactly is it that is in the chicken nuggets?

Here's a fun fact: their "chicken" is actually, at most, 44 percent chicken. The rest is mostly corn, salt, preservatives, and a few other interesting nasties.
When someone orders chicken nuggets, it's generally understood that you're getting chicken, not corn. Unfortunately, corn is extremely abundant in this country and is easy to establish crops of in others, and so corn and corn products compose the majority of McDonalds "chicken" nuggets.
Yes, I absolutely have to use the quotation marks. Sue me.

There are 38 ingredients in the McDonalds "chicken" nuggets.

Of them: the chicken (which is fed genetically altered corn, by the way. But is that really much of a surprise?), modified cornstarch (without this, the "chicken" nuggets would not be able to hold themselves together, due to the extreme processing of the nugget.), emulsifiers (so that the fats and the moisture in the nuggets do not separate, forming a nasty clot-like knuckle of nugget.), dextrose (it's a sugar.), chicken broth (a source of moisture and some flavor that has been leeched out of the nugget by the processing of the product.).

Yellow corn starch and more modified cornstarch are added to make the batter.