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I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are s

I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.

CharlieDigital 2y ago
> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. Taste is subjective. Sounds like his son preferred the taste of one over the other. My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.
- johnla 2y ago
  Try making nuggets from scratch. It’s so good and easy to do. Chicken tenders from breast meat. Egg seasoned with salt, pepper. Dunk into seasoned breading. Dunk into egg again and back to the breading. Pan fry. Yummy.
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    I do make fried chicken for them occasionally and I season with a bit of curry, cumin, and smoked paprika. - 1 pack of 6 thighs or 3 breasts - 4 tbs corn starch + 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp each of curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika to coat - slice chicken thinly and use a mallet to flatten to make it even and cook faster (this also increases the ratio of breading to chicken which they like) - coat each slice in the corn starch mix - beat 2 eggs and then dredge the coated slices in egg - coat the now egg coated chicken with bread crumbs of your choice - fry in a flat pan with just about 4-6mm of oil - about 60-90 seconds each side They love it! But it also takes me almost 2 hours to do! So it's a once in a while thing in these busy times.
  - mapt 2y ago
    You're still going to come back to a child who's learned "Real chicken nuggets come in dinosaur shapes, are very salty, have a uniform breading, and don't require teeth to chew". He's going to think your dish doesn't quality.
    - CharlieDigital 2y ago
      Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.
      - shagie 2y ago
        I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided. That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other classic school lunches. The alternative would be to have a school that has a sufficiently large and trained kitchen staff to prepare diverse food, make sure that the food selection that they have meets the requirements (and that the kids aren't just eating the deserts). I'm recalling back to my school food eating days and the kitchen had four people - two serving, one cooking, one cleaning. High school had two or three in the cafeteria - and they were constantly putting out the fast food equivalent food items. I can't even remember if there were salads (if there were, I don't think I ever ate them). [Burger, deep fried [fish, shrimp, chicken], French fries] was my lunches for four years. Though I'm also not entirely sure that schools are to blame for the narrowing of food preference with kids. They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
        jkestner 2y ago
        I think it's like the rest of the school experience—your parents are the major influencers here. Our kids like what we like because we've fed them what we eat, from sardines to Sichuan to sushi. They take leftovers to school — cheaper and they don't like most of the cafeteria food anyway.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Chicken tenders are chicken tenders, not nuggets. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with nuggets. Nobody criticizes Italian meatballs, which are ground-up beef in balls. But then for some reason ground-up chicken in a different shape isn't "real chicken"?!
    - cma 2y ago
      Not all nuggets are ground, chick fil a nuggets I think are just a chunk of tenderloin or something. But I wouldn't call a fried complete tenderloin a nugget.
    - marcus0x62 2y ago
      You’ll find the “ground chicken” in a typical industrially produced chicken nugget to be quite different than the ground meat found in a traditional Italian meatball.
      - 1234letshaveatw 2y ago
        correct, the "ground chicken" is much less wasteful and a more cost effective way to feed the masses with a reduced environmental impact
      - morsch 2y ago
        McNuggets are 45% meat (specifically: Chicken Breast Meat) -- at least they are in the UK, where they have to give out this information. Presumably the US recipe is at least similar. https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-mcnuggets-6-pieces.html https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-mcnuggets... I'm sure there are many traditional Italian meatball recipes, but as one example, I had an AI convert the US measurements from Chef John's recipe, and it estimated 900g meat and 494g other ingredients, so 65% meat. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220854/chef-johns-italian-meatballs/ https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220854/chef-johns-italian-... Of course the ingredients differ in a lot of other ways than just the percentage of meat. That's just what I looked at.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        Will you find it to be different? Honestly, ground meat is ground meat. What makes you think ground chicken is "quite different"? Why are you putting it in scare quotes? The chicken breasts used to make McNuggets are literally no different from the standard chicken breasts sold at your average grocery store. And in both cases the ground meat/chicken is mixed with binders and flavorings to keep it together and keep it moist and make it even tastier -- variously including flour, breadcrumbs, water, salt, spices, etc. depending on the recipe. Obviously nuggets are battered and fried. But then so are traditional Italian delicacies like arancini.
throwmeme888 2y ago
eggs are homogenous in nature, so a blind test between two eggs can reveal the superior quality of one type of homogenous product. Especially when it is an egg, which is entirely "natural" a chicken nugget is not the same thing as whole chicken, because it has many chemicals, additives, flavouring agents, msg, organ meat, etc and is then battered or crumbed and deep fried before being packed. It also has a different texture altogether, and is eaten with the hands which children find easier than using cutlery. compare a child tasting two different varieties of dark chocolate in comparison to a milk chocolate with caramel filling, or two varieties of whole milk to chocolate skim milk, et cetera.
- prepend 2y ago
  You are right. My point wasn’t that chicken and eggs are the same or even similar. What I wanted to convey is just because kids have a preference for something doesn’t mean it is better. So more a flaw in the syllogism.
xattt 2y ago
> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. It will depend on whether the whole chicken is chicken proper, or one reassembled from nuggets.
cluckindan 2y ago
Nuggets are mostly skin and cartilage, so maybe that preference stems from the nutritional needs of a growing child.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Where do you get this total misinformation? You're trying to propagate an urban legend. HN is not the place for that.
  - cluckindan 2y ago
    What are you referring to? Sure, chicken nuggets made mostly of breast or other muscle flesh exist, but you can bet your buns the majority of frozen nuggets are mostly ground skin and mechanically separated meat. In the United States, mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969, after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Chicken nuggets are primarily chicken muscle tissue, end of story. Yes they can include mechanically separated chicken, which is basically a fancy name for saying they scraped all the meat off the bones. But that isn't "mostly skin and cartilage", it's meat. There may be trace amounts of cartilage and small amounts of skin in it, but they are nowhere near the main components. If you're still not sure, just look at the protein content of chicken nuggets. The quantity of protein can only come from actual chicken muscle. Skin has little protein and cartilage has virtually none. There are a lot of urban legends out there about what chicken nuggets are made of. But they're precisely that -- urban legends. They're false.
      - cluckindan 2y ago
        https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-made-of https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?

I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.

CharlieDigital 2y ago

> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. Taste is subjective. Sounds like his son preferred the taste of one over the other. My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.

johnla 2y ago
Try making nuggets from scratch. It’s so good and easy to do. Chicken tenders from breast meat. Egg seasoned with salt, pepper. Dunk into seasoned breading. Dunk into egg again and back to the breading. Pan fry. Yummy.
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  I do make fried chicken for them occasionally and I season with a bit of curry, cumin, and smoked paprika. - 1 pack of 6 thighs or 3 breasts - 4 tbs corn starch + 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp each of curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika to coat - slice chicken thinly and use a mallet to flatten to make it even and cook faster (this also increases the ratio of breading to chicken which they like) - coat each slice in the corn starch mix - beat 2 eggs and then dredge the coated slices in egg - coat the now egg coated chicken with bread crumbs of your choice - fry in a flat pan with just about 4-6mm of oil - about 60-90 seconds each side They love it! But it also takes me almost 2 hours to do! So it's a once in a while thing in these busy times.
- mapt 2y ago
  You're still going to come back to a child who's learned "Real chicken nuggets come in dinosaur shapes, are very salty, have a uniform breading, and don't require teeth to chew". He's going to think your dish doesn't quality.
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.
    - shagie 2y ago
      I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided. That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other classic school lunches. The alternative would be to have a school that has a sufficiently large and trained kitchen staff to prepare diverse food, make sure that the food selection that they have meets the requirements (and that the kids aren't just eating the deserts). I'm recalling back to my school food eating days and the kitchen had four people - two serving, one cooking, one cleaning. High school had two or three in the cafeteria - and they were constantly putting out the fast food equivalent food items. I can't even remember if there were salads (if there were, I don't think I ever ate them). [Burger, deep fried [fish, shrimp, chicken], French fries] was my lunches for four years. Though I'm also not entirely sure that schools are to blame for the narrowing of food preference with kids. They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
      - jkestner 2y ago
        I think it's like the rest of the school experience—your parents are the major influencers here. Our kids like what we like because we've fed them what we eat, from sardines to Sichuan to sushi. They take leftovers to school — cheaper and they don't like most of the cafeteria food anyway.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Chicken tenders are chicken tenders, not nuggets. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with nuggets. Nobody criticizes Italian meatballs, which are ground-up beef in balls. But then for some reason ground-up chicken in a different shape isn't "real chicken"?!
  - cma 2y ago
    Not all nuggets are ground, chick fil a nuggets I think are just a chunk of tenderloin or something. But I wouldn't call a fried complete tenderloin a nugget.
  - marcus0x62 2y ago
    You’ll find the “ground chicken” in a typical industrially produced chicken nugget to be quite different than the ground meat found in a traditional Italian meatball.
    - 1234letshaveatw 2y ago
      correct, the "ground chicken" is much less wasteful and a more cost effective way to feed the masses with a reduced environmental impact
    - morsch 2y ago
      McNuggets are 45% meat (specifically: Chicken Breast Meat) -- at least they are in the UK, where they have to give out this information. Presumably the US recipe is at least similar. https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-mcnuggets-6-pieces.html https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-mcnuggets... I'm sure there are many traditional Italian meatball recipes, but as one example, I had an AI convert the US measurements from Chef John's recipe, and it estimated 900g meat and 494g other ingredients, so 65% meat. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220854/chef-johns-italian-meatballs/ https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220854/chef-johns-italian-... Of course the ingredients differ in a lot of other ways than just the percentage of meat. That's just what I looked at.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Will you find it to be different? Honestly, ground meat is ground meat. What makes you think ground chicken is "quite different"? Why are you putting it in scare quotes? The chicken breasts used to make McNuggets are literally no different from the standard chicken breasts sold at your average grocery store. And in both cases the ground meat/chicken is mixed with binders and flavorings to keep it together and keep it moist and make it even tastier -- variously including flour, breadcrumbs, water, salt, spices, etc. depending on the recipe. Obviously nuggets are battered and fried. But then so are traditional Italian delicacies like arancini.

throwmeme888 2y ago

eggs are homogenous in nature, so a blind test between two eggs can reveal the superior quality of one type of homogenous product. Especially when it is an egg, which is entirely "natural" a chicken nugget is not the same thing as whole chicken, because it has many chemicals, additives, flavouring agents, msg, organ meat, etc and is then battered or crumbed and deep fried before being packed. It also has a different texture altogether, and is eaten with the hands which children find easier than using cutlery. compare a child tasting two different varieties of dark chocolate in comparison to a milk chocolate with caramel filling, or two varieties of whole milk to chocolate skim milk, et cetera.

prepend 2y ago
You are right. My point wasn’t that chicken and eggs are the same or even similar. What I wanted to convey is just because kids have a preference for something doesn’t mean it is better. So more a flaw in the syllogism.

xattt 2y ago

> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. It will depend on whether the whole chicken is chicken proper, or one reassembled from nuggets.

cluckindan 2y ago

Nuggets are mostly skin and cartilage, so maybe that preference stems from the nutritional needs of a growing child.

crazygringo 2y ago
Where do you get this total misinformation? You're trying to propagate an urban legend. HN is not the place for that.
- cluckindan 2y ago
  What are you referring to? Sure, chicken nuggets made mostly of breast or other muscle flesh exist, but you can bet your buns the majority of frozen nuggets are mostly ground skin and mechanically separated meat. In the United States, mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969, after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Chicken nuggets are primarily chicken muscle tissue, end of story. Yes they can include mechanically separated chicken, which is basically a fancy name for saying they scraped all the meat off the bones. But that isn't "mostly skin and cartilage", it's meat. There may be trace amounts of cartilage and small amounts of skin in it, but they are nowhere near the main components. If you're still not sure, just look at the protein content of chicken nuggets. The quantity of protein can only come from actual chicken muscle. Skin has little protein and cartilage has virtually none. There are a lot of urban legends out there about what chicken nuggets are made of. But they're precisely that -- urban legends. They're false.
    - cluckindan 2y ago
      https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-made-of https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?