What's in a McNugget?

I've always said that fast food tastes like putty. Turns out I'm not far off, because one of the ingredients in Chicken McNuggets is also found in Silly Putty.

I wonder if you can copy the funny pages by smashing a McNugget into it. It's certainly preferable to actually eating the things.

A recent CNN "investigation" -- they read the ingredients label -- found that this Happy Meal staple contains dimethylpolysiloxane. Listed as "an antifoaming agent," dimethylpolysiloxane is also used in Silly Putty and common cosmetics.

And if that doesn't whet your appetite, McNuggets also contain a petroleum-derived preservative called tertiary butylhydroquinone, also known as tBHQ. A single gram of this stuff can cause nausea, vomiting, delirium, ringing in the ears, the sensation of suffocating, collapse and an overheated spell checker.

No wonder people feel like crap after they eat this junk!

Health officials claim these ingredients are safe if you eat them in the small amounts used in food preparations like Chicken McNuggets. But is that really a chance you want to take?

For the record, neither ingredient is essential to the integrity of the McNugget -- CNN found that they're not used at all in British McDonald's locations, and I haven't heard of any McRiots over there.

McDonald's says the difference is due to local tastes -- so apparently, we Yanks enjoy the delicate flavors of petroleum and Silly Putty. And for all I know, maybe we do. They can't be much worse than anything else on the typical fast food, canned goods and frozen meals diet that has America in such great shape.

Having said all that, I have to admit: I'm impressed by the Chicken McNugget. I wouldn't put one near my mouth, but it's an absolute marvel of engineering -- I counted 37 ingredients just in the "chicken" and the "breaded" coating, and another seven ingredients in the vegetable oil used to cook it.

They should put these things in a science museum, maybe blast them off into space so other civilizations can see how advanced we are.

Just make sure they're clearly labeled: DO NOT EAT.

Not McLovin' putty nuggets,

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.