Chicken McNuggets apparently contain lighter fluid

March 23, 2007 Health

I “banned” McDonald’s food years ago, after living in Atlanta, Georgia and realizing that the food standards there were significantly below those in Canada. Today I read an article describing the 38 ingredients found in Chicken McNuggets. Surprising facts:


  • They’re mostly made of corn (56%)

  • They have trace amounts of several suspected carcinogens

  • They contain trace amounts of a type of butane (lighter fluid!)


Yummy!

UPDATE: Apparently there is some controversy about whether TBHQ (the ingredient in question) is actually a form a butane.  Chemists seem to think not.   Nonetheless, eating one gram of TBHQ will cause “nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.“   So it’s clearly not great stuff to be ingesting.