Study Finds Chicken Nuggets Contain Blood Vessels, Nerves, and Skin

Pre-vegans might want to read this study before biting into another chicken nugget. Researchers at the University of Mississippi medical center dissected  fast food chicken nuggets and found that they contained 50 percent or less chicken muscle tissue, with the rest being a mix of fat, blood vessels, cartilage, nerves, and pieces of bone.

The study’s authors concluded that “chicken nuggets are mostly fat, and their name is a misnomer.”

Dr. Richard D. deShazo, one of the researchers, added, “What has happened is that some companies have chosen to use an artificial mixture of chicken parts … batter it up and fry it and still call it chicken.”

Perhaps even grosser is The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine study that found nearly half of supermarket chicken (both conventional and organic) is contaminated with feces.

Yuck! With all that feces and fat in chicken, there’s also a hefty helping of animal cruelty. Chickens raised for their meat are crammed by the thousands inside massive windowless sheds. To make matters worse, they’re genetically selected and fed drugs to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible. This rapid growth often results in painful leg deformities.

Luckily, there’s a wide range of delicious and protein packed chicken-free alternatives available in grocery stores everywhere. Try Beyond Meat, Gardein, or Lightlife — it’s easy to use these products to replace chicken in almost any recipe! Find out more at TryVeg.com.