When its been a long day of polishing your wooden leg, beating up ninjas, and feeding the parrot, all your standard pirate desires is an uncrowded car on the Red Line and a chicken sandwich. Well, the uncrowded car part is relatively easy compared to the insurmountable task of finding a good chicken sandwich in DC. Shiver me timbers indeed, what be this on me Kaiser? It be th’ dreaded CHICKEN PRODUCT.
Oh, that greasy sensation of biting into a salty, lukewarm, sponge. Those air bubbles where no air bubbles should be. That flat, oblong shape; inside every mammal’s brain, no matter now indoctrinated, there is the knowledge that chicken breast should not have right-angles.
But besides being completely disgusting and inedible, what’s in this stuff?
Chicken skin is the prime ingredient in most chicken product, ripped off by factory workers before the rest of the chicken is processed. Skin is often the only part of the chicken present, but even that could be as low as 16% of what makes up a finished patty.
Protein slurry: created by forcing carcasses that have already been stripped of skin and meat through a wire mesh. Any actual muscle product, (and also nerve matter, cartilage, and bone) gets added in this way
Water: to plump up this stuff, it goes through a process called ‘tumbling’ where salt water is forced into the matter. This makes it take up more space.
Cow and pork hide, bone, and ligaments: the water would just drip out again without these important stabilizers
Soybeans: vegetarians will be glad to know that most of the chicken product’s volume is actually made from this legume. It’s the only way to give it any other texture besides ‘liquid’. However, to make this stuff taste right, you have to first flavor it with…
A huge amount of MSG, sugar, maltodextrin, lactose and other flavoring chemicals: after all, soybeans aren’t known for their chickeny taste. The sugar also helps neutralize the salt water we already used to give it some volume.
Anti-foaming agent (polydimethylsiloxane): it’s a type of silicone. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds pretty scary.
Leavening agents: sodium bicarbonate or yeast to add more volume. I’m guessing that must be what causes the freaky air bubbles
Xanthan gum, phosphates, and other emulsifiers, binders, and stabilizers: it’s the only way to glue the proteins, water, and fat from stratifying out of solution.
Lots of banned antibiotics: at least in Europe, a lot of chicken product comes in through Asia to bypass EU laws on harmful substances. Anyone know if this is true in the US?
Citric acid: a preservative. It almost sounds wholesome at this point.
I’m not really sure what pirates had to do with any of this. -z