'Let’s start in the deboning department'

McNuggets have gotten a bad rap in recent years, in large part due to a viral photo of "pink goop" or "pink slime" purported to be the main ingredient in the McDonald's product.

The folks at McDonald's Canada created a video intended to refute the claims. The video begins with McDonald's Canada Supply Chain Manager Nicoletta Stefou saying her employer gets the question a lot.
 
"We don't know what it is or where it came from, but it has nothing to do with our Chicken McNuggets," Stefou says of the "goop," standing in Cargill Limited's food processing plant in London, Ontario.

Pray tell, how are Chicken McNuggets made?

"Let's start in the deboning department," says Jennifer Rabideau, product development scientist at Cargill.

From that point forward, intrepid viewers are given an all-access backstage pass to the nuts-to-soup process of making a McNugget. Blenders, grinders and large collection bins all contribute to the magic.

Once the chicken meat is ground up, Stefou compares it with the infamous "pink goop" photo. "It's very different," Stefou says in the video, which was uploaded to McDonald's Canada's YouTube account.

McNuggets are then covered in batter (twice), bagged, frozen and shipped to the restaurants.

In February 2012, McDonald's announced that, as of 2011, it was no longer using ammonium hydroxide in the production of its hamburgers. For more on the "pink slime" phenomenon, check out this piece from Time magazine.

Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz).