King of Chicken Nuggets

Since Rachel has already re-directed us to YouTube, I cannot help but share with you a video Holly introduced me to featuring King Curtis- who’s definitely sending a different message to the younger generation than the milk rappers promoting organic and craft farming. King Curtis indulges himself witch chicken nuggets several times daily and serves to promote the industrialized and processed food market. It’s a little lengthy, but I think you will be very amused by King Curtis and his fight against balanced meals and physical fitness.

The emergence of the chicken nugget plays well into several trends we’ve discussed in class. Invented in the 1950’s by a food scientist at Cornell, the chicken nugget is a prime example of post World War II industrialization and production. McDonalds mainstreamed the chicken nugget in the 1980’s, turning “McNugget” into a word recognized in every American home. Prior to 2003, McDonald’s McNuggets were made of half white meat and half dark meat. Similar to Wonderbread, the McNugget became an all white meat product in response to public scrutiny. Chicken is not the sole ingredient, however. MSN profiled and cites seven primary ingredients: chicken, water, dextrose, sodium phosphates, wheat starch, safflower oil and autolyzed yeast extract. Twenty more ingredients are found in the breading that coats each McNugget.

Transnationality has made the McNugget global, and many marketing campaigns have attempted to connect the McNugget to diverse cultures and essentially “localize” the global commodity. Launched in 1986, Shanghai McNuggets came with a pair of chopsticks, a fortune cookie, and Asian-influenced dipping sauce. The Fiesta McNuggets launched in 1988 were packaged in an exotic box and came with a collectible fiesta coin.

Fueled by the counterculture, McDonald’s has worked to promote a healthy image of the fried chicken product. McDonald’s hoped to capitalize on the growing vegetarian sector and created the short lived Garden McNugget, made of beans instead of chicken. In a similar vein, McDonalds attempted to link the McNugget to athletic success by claiming it to be one of the most popular foods among athletes at the Olympics and developed an ad campaign highlighting this fact for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

With 4.8 billion McNuggets sold annually at 48 calories a pop, McNuggets are here to stay. Check out this woman in Toledo, Ohio, literally willing to fight for her McNuggets, giving King Curtis a run for his money (or thrown) as King of Chicken Nuggets.