Burger King Doesn't Use 100% Chicken — Here's What Else Is In There

Most of us aren't walking into a fast food restaurant looking to get fresh ingredients cooked to order, but there is a certain level of expectation when it comes to what's being served up. One of these is that your meat should be meat, and your chicken should be chicken. Despite this, Burger King joins the list of restaurants that aren't using 100% chicken in its offerings.

Burger King's nuggets and chicken fries have the longest list of ingredients. Although many of these are used in the breading, batter, and what the chain refers to as "predusting," the chicken portion of the recipe includes chicken meat, water, flavorings (including added chicken fat and chicken broth powder), isolated oat product, modified food starch, and phosphates. Even the Original Chicken Sandwich is a composite of chicken meats, isolated oat product, and flavorings. The Royal Crispy Chicken and all its iterations do better in terms of serving up real chicken, as does the Chicken Jr, but they're still not what you might expect. This isn't a simple piece of chicken that's seasoned and breaded, but a mix of breast meat, rib meat, starch, and seasonings that's been formed into the shape of a fillet.

Even if you're alright with this bit of alleged deception, BK's chicken sandwiches are among the list of fast food items avoided by employees. Across platforms like Tripadvisor, Reddit, and Facebook, there are also multiple reports of the chicken being inconsistently cooked and even served raw to customers.

It's easy enough to let the long list of ingredients put you off, but it's more helpful to understand what they're all used for. Flavorings are fairly self-explanatory, and in many cases include natural flavors you might add to your own food such as onion, garlic, or spices. 

Among Burger King's seasonings you'll also find maltodextrin, which is a preservative and stabilizer derived from starch. Though it offers little flavor on its own, it's used to enhance the way we perceive tastes, as well as improve the mouthfeel of foods. Also on the list is potassium chloride, a naturally occurring compound that's used as a salt substitute. It provides the salty taste without high sodium levels, as well as adding potassium, which can help to reduce blood pressure. Modified food starch (another frequently listed ingredient) is used to emulsify and bind ingredients, as well as making sure they retain moisture when cooking. These types of starches can be derived from a range of sources, including corn, tapioca, potato, or wheat, which need only be specified if they contain an allergen such as gluten. 

The main ingredient to be aware of in Burger King's lineup of chicken items is isolated oat product. Not for any health or safety reasons, but because it's basically filler. It's the isolated hull from the outside of the oat, which contains insoluble fiber that helps to bulk up food without affecting flavor. While we could all probably use more fiber in our diets, this does mean less chicken in your BK nuggets and sandwiches.