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Which would you rather your kid eat: Chicken McNuggets or Silly Putty? They might not be as different as we think.
CNN reports that McDonald's makes its Chicken McNuggets with the chemical preservative tertiary butylhydroquinone (tBHQ), a petroleum-based product (who says Americans aren't addicted to oil?). Those yummy petroleum-packed McNuggets also contain the oh-so-scrumptious ingredient dimethylpolysiloxane (an anti-foaming agent). Guess where else you can find that one? Silly Putty.
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Petroleum and Silly Putty. Yum! Can you imagine putting that on a plate and serving it to your toddler?
But not to worry. McNuggets are perfectly safe. Sort of.
A review of animal studies by the World Health Organization found no adverse health effects associated with dimethylpolysiloxane. Tertiary butylhydroquinone is limited to .02 percent of the oil in the nugget. One gram (one-thirtieth of an ounce) can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse," according to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives.
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