How are chicken nuggets made & why are they bad for you?

There’s more to a chicken nugget than meets the eye—and the truth may cost you your appetite.

What are chicken nuggets made of?

With their golden fried batter, chicken nuggets may look appealing on the outside—but what’s on the inside is far more disturbing. Chicken nuggets are made with white meat from the breast or pectoral muscles of the birds, with other chicken parts mixed in. Tendons, bones, nervous and connective tissues, and fat can all be ground up together before being shaped into those bite-sized pieces. One study found that chicken nuggets contained more fat than meat, "along with... bone, nerve, and connective tissue."

Of course, manufacturers and brands all have different recipes—and these recipes are often well-guarded secrets. Regardless of the varying additives and ingredients they contain, when you find out how chicken nuggets are made, we're guessing you'll want to leave them off your plate.

How are chicken nuggets made?

All chicken nuggets begin as living birds, hatched into life for the sole purpose of becoming food for human beings. Chicken nuggets are made by exploiting these birds, confining them in nearly unlivable conditions, and subjecting them to extreme suffering.

These are all the steps involved in turning chickens into nuggets:

Confining chickens in crowded sheds

Broiler chickens are chickens born and raised specifically for meat production, kept in huge sheds designed to confine tens of thousands of birds at a time. Broiler sheds typically do not allow birds any access to the outdoors, or even windows to allow natural sunlight to filter through. Instead, birds live under artificial lighting and in such crowded spaces that it's hard for them to get proper exercise or rest.

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Chickens are slaughtered when they're just 47 days old.

Broiler chickens are slaughtered when they're around just 47 days old—compared with their natural lifespans of 5-12 years, it's clear that the chickens who are killed for nuggets are essentially toddlers.

Feeding them antibiotics

In broiler barns, chickens are often given antibiotics to help them grow faster, and to prevent the infections that could otherwise sicken and kill birds kept in the unnatural conditions of factory farms. Overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals is a leading cause of antibiotic resistance, one of the gravest health threats faced by humanity today.

Throwing away sick or weak chickens

Although broiler chickens live just over a month within factory farms before their untimely slaughter, many of them are not able to survive even this short period. Millions of chickens each year die from a host of painful conditions. Unnaturally rapid growth, the result of selective breeding, also causes stress to chickens' skeletons and organs and can give rise to lethal conditions like Sudden Death Syndrome.

Transporting them to slaughter

Transporting broiler chickens to the slaughterhouse can be a grueling trip for the birds, some of whom never make it and die before arriving at their final destination. Chickens are roughly crammed into small crates and stacked on trucks that can hold around 3,000 birds at a time. Birds can be exposed to extreme heat or cold during the trip, and they are denied access to food and water (having already been starved for up to 12 hours before leaving the farm), adding even more stress to an already brutal situation.

Killing the chickens

Chickens endure some of the most difficult deaths of any factory-farmed animal. Known as live-shackle slaughter, the horrific process begins by shoving the birds’ legs into metal stirrups, which are painful and ill-fitting. Birds are then moved through an electrified bath of water meant to render them unconscious before their throats are slit. Then, their bodies are plunged into a boiling vat of water to defeather them.

Sadly, many hundreds of thousands of birds remain conscious for their deaths due to improper stunning and throat-cutting, resulting in some of the worst welfare violations within the animal agricultural industry today.

Tell the chicken industry to stop boiling birds alive.

Deboning and grinding

To combat the “pink slime” myths, where images of neon-pink processed meat were said to be a step in chicken nugget-making, McDonald’s posted a virtual tour of a meatpacking plant where some of its nuggets are made.

The video depicts dead chickens being deboned, the breast meat cut off their bodies. The breasts are then dumped into huge bins, which are wheeled over to a massive grinder. The meat is ground to shreds and combined with the skin of chickens, acting as a binding agent and eventually becoming an unappetizing beige paste.

Shaping and frying

The final stage of chicken nugget creation is shaping the meat paste, battering it with a tempura batter, and frying it, all using a highly mechanized process.

Are chicken nuggets bad for you?

Some chicken nugget recipes are worse for your health than others, but even at the best of times, these products are not considered healthy foods. Chicken nuggets tend to have high amounts of sodium, with one restaurant’s six-nugget serving shown to contain around a quarter of the daily recommended intake. Nuggets can also be fried in hydrogenated oils, and they contain high amounts of preservatives, sugar, and fat. All of these ingredients make chicken nuggets very unhealthy, especially when eaten frequently.

The truth about chicken nuggets

The truth about chicken nuggets is not nearly as golden as their battered exteriors might suggest. Like other chicken products, nuggets are the result of a sentient animal's suffering. Chickens are intelligent, curious animals who deserve to spread their wings, perch on tree branches, and roam through the dust and grass. Instead, they're confined under terrible conditions and killed at a young age.

But chickens aren’t the only ones treated poorly in the production of chicken nuggets. Workers also suffer on farms and in meatpacking plants, where they face exposure to toxic pollution, suffer workplace injuries caused by blades and other dangerous equipment, and are often underpaid and nonunionized.

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Workers also suffer on farms and in meatpacking plants.

Swapping chicken nuggets out for increasingly popular plant-based alternatives is a great way to help reduce the harms arising from the chicken industry. With the proliferation of plant-based nuggets being developed by major restaurant chains and food companies, the decision to opt for a more ethical nugget is easier—and more delicious—than ever.

To go a step further and join the movement to end the abuse of animals raised for food, take action with us.