Here’s Exactly What’s In McDonald’s ‘Healthier’ McNuggets

McNuggets just got much cleaner, supposedly. McDonald’s announced it will be serving an all new, healthier McNugget recipe nationwide.

Initial announcements didn’t include ingredient details, according to the Associated Press, they hadn’t announced that new recipe yet.

The new recipe calls has no artificial preservatives, and removed ingredients like safflower oil and citric acid.  McDonald’s said they also replaced them with “more familiar sounding’ ingredients, like pea starch, rice starch, powdered lemon juice.  

A McDonald’s representative revealed the full new ingredients list as follows, white boneless chicken, water, vegetable oil (canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil), enriched flour bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), bleached wheat flour, yellow corn flour, vegetable starch (modified corn, wheat, rice, pea, corn), salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, calcium lactate, monocalcium phosphate), spices, yeast extract, lemon juice solids, dextrose, natural flavors.

The current recipe crams 32 ingredients into each McNugget. The ingredients they officially said will not be included are sodium phosphates, which is used to keep the chicken moist, an artificial preservative called tert-Butylhyroquinone, and the a change to the oil used to fry the nuggets.

The company originally started testing the new recipe back in April at 140 restaurants.  No specific ingredient changes were announced at that time either. According to Crain’s, the McNugget’s new packaging and advertisements both in-store and on social media highlight the lack of artificial colors and flavors in the new recipe.

The company has been attempting to market itself as more healthy for years, and on Monday, they announced that their goal was to stop using chickens that have been raised with human antibiotics. Other efforts include removing high fructose corn syrup from the buns. Revamps to get rid of artificial ingredients are expected to effect about half the menu. In 2014, McDonald’s even hired former Mythbuster co-host Grant Imahara to investigate and answer customer concerns surrounding McDonald’s food.

All this to try and convince us that their food is healthy. Are you buying it?