Anthony Bourdain Couldn't Stand This Iconic McDonald's Favorite

There was always a refreshing frankness to how the late Anthony Bourdain spoke about food. Instead of the hoity-toity views you might expect from chefs of his caliber, he would keep it real whenever it came to his beliefs and opinions about what we eat. Bourdain loved the taste of cardboard in his coffee and was vocal about his love for Popeyes fried chicken. At the same time, however, being as outspoken as he was always risked some controversy, and he had some pretty savage food takes that many of us would disagree with. One of the most polarizing opinions Bourdain had was his stance that McDonald's Chicken McNuggets were one of the most disgusting things he'd ever eaten.

He discussed them in a 2008 interview with the A.V. Club. He compared McNuggets to one of the most heinous things he's ever eaten, a warthog anus: "Given the choice between reliving the warthog experience and eating a McNugget, I'm surely eating the McNugget," he told the A.V. Club. "But at least I knew what the warthog was. Whereas with the McNugget, I think that's still an open question. Scientists are still wondering." Bourdain couldn't stand these perfectly golden, crispy-yet-juicy, sodium-packed chunks of happiness, which is more than likely to raise a few eyebrows among the McNugget-loving set. His opinion on McNuggets is a testament to the fact that no single food can please everyone, even if it was apparently so good that its invention likely saved McDonald's in the 1980s.

Anthony Bourdain had been clear about his disdain for Chicken McNuggets for decades. In a 2003 interview with Taiwanese news outlet CTi (via the Taipei Times), he spoke of the horrors of encountering the popular snack: "What could be more frightening than walking into a McDonald's and looking at a Chicken McNugget?" Ten years later, at a benefit by My Last Supper, Bourdain tortured his good friend and fellow chef Eric Ripert with a McNugget in a blind taste test, to the entertainment of a hollering crowd.

In a 2014 interview with Kam Williams for The Aquarian, Bourdain explained exactly why he found the Chicken McNugget so unnerving. "If you're eating unwholesome, street food in a country where they have to make do with whatever scraps are left to them, at least you know what it is, and generally have some sense of where it came from," he said. "Whereas a McNugget, to my way of thinking, is a Frankenfood whose name doesn't necessarily reflect what it is. I'm still not sure what it is."

To be fair, Bourdain wasn't above having a few McNuggets; he told Williams he might have some when he's drunk. He just really despised the thought of eating them, as he explained in a 2016 video for People: "I've had enough reasons in my life — many, many, many times — to hate myself in the morning, but, you know, the kind of hate for myself I feel after a big wad of Chicken McNuggets is pretty intense ... and deserved!"

One of Anthony Bourdain's biggest hang-ups is that the Chicken McNugget, to him, seems like it's so far away from being actual chicken that the name itself is misleading. The funny thing is, the list of ingredients is easily found on the McDonald's website, and — spoiler alert — it's white chicken with a bunch of preservatives, salt, flour, and spices, despite the popular myth of it being made with pink slime. A 2014 How It's Made tour video at one of their plants goes a lot more in-depth about what goes into a McNugget, showing every major step of its production.

The nugget itself is made with chicken breasts, rib meat, tenderloin, and a little bit of chicken skin added later on for flavor. The meat is coarsely ground, then mixed with water, sodium phosphates, and food starches for moisture; salt, natural flavorings, and yeast extract for flavor; and rosemary extract and safflower oil to preserve freshness. The chicken is then molded into the company's iconic McNugget shapes before being coated in the McDonald's signature tempura batter. After all this, the McNuggets are fried and partially cooked, then shipped out to every branch.