Which type of chicken is superior?

Illustration: Carter Klassen · *The Sentry*

Nuggets are the way to go
Opinion by Amanda Blackman

When it comes to crispy chicken cravings, nothing hits the spot quite like the delicious, perfectly balanced chicken nugget. Who rolls through the McDonald’s drive-thru with a late-night craving for chicken tenders? Nobody! Chicken nuggets are the perfect go-to, not to mention exponentially superior to the chicken tender.

What brings the chicken nugget above and beyond the chicken tender is the ratio of breading to chicken. A good fried chicken snack needs to have a crispy exterior with a juicy chicken interior. Chicken nuggets are bite-sized masterpieces. When an entire nugget can be eaten in a single bite, angels from the heavens above can be heard serenading the moment. Chicken tenders blaspheme the ratio. They’re either too fried and battered, overwhelming the chicken flavor, or only lightly dusted with breading, ruining the entire experience and making angels cry.

It’s the enjoyment factor that leads people to ordering chicken nuggets. Going through that drive-thru to get the processed fried chicken from heaven brings people back. Remember begging mom to pull through the drive-thru, pleading for chicken nuggets, and she would only sometimes say yes? Remember how delicious those nuggets tasted, acting as a physical embodiment of your success? Or the majority of the time when she would say no? Be the kind of adult that children would be proud of. Pull through the drive through without mom’s approval and enjoy the memories and flavor of the nuggets. Besides, what kind of child would beg mom for chicken tenders over nuggets?

The overly processed chicken may lead mom to say no, but there’s one major benefit of the processing: chicken nuggets are less expensive than chicken tenders. At McDonald’s, a 10 piece tender is $9.49. A 10 piece nugget? $4.49 for the hallowed experience.

Chicken nuggets are what the Lord intended chicken to be. They’re divinely crispy and juicy, they bring on the nostalgia, and not to mention cheaper than the criminal of chicken, a.k.a. the tender. Chicken tenders can just sit down because chicken nuggets will always be the holiest form of chicken consumption.

Grow up, eat tenders
Opinion by Benjamin Neufeld

“I love chicken nuggets,” says Jason, nine years old. “Ooh, I love nuggets too!” says Kate, seven years old. “Mom, can we have chicken nuggets for dinner?” That was the six year old Howard. The CU Denver Sentry is a respectable, student-run college newspaper. The writers and readers of this paper are grown-ups now. Grown-ups are not children anymore. Grown-ups don’t eat nuggets. Grown-ups do better for themselves. Grown-ups eat tendies.

Wikipedia describes chicken tenders as “chicken meat prepared from the pectoralis minor muscles of the animal.” That is a tender strip of meat located under the chicken breast. Objectively, the best cut of meat. Wikipedia describes chicken nuggets as “a chicken product made from chicken meat.”

Okay, well, at least nuggets are cheap, right? The price of nuggets is determined by the fact that no sane person would spend more than $5 on any amount of nugget.

High blood pressure practitioners of the nugget propaganda machine might traduce the truth telling, tireless, chicken tender lover with deceitful tales that their snack preference is classist: not everyone can afford luxury cuts of chicken meat. A Lamborghini is a nicer car than a 1998 Mazda Protege. It is not classist to say so. A lambo costs as much as an out of state college education. A stolen Mazda probably won’t even be reported as stolen, not worth the hassle. Nicer things cost more than less nice things. In this case, tendies cost a few dollars more.

A staple of their menu, McDonald’s manufactured the popularity of the chicken nugget by making the item the entrée of their children’s Happy Meal. According to a Wall Street Journal article from 2017, McDonald’s spends about $2 billion on worldwide marketing. Can the rich buy love? Yes, obviously. The nugget craze is a false admiration mass produced by bloodless marketing campaigns, and not with the gracious intent of sharing a high-quality product with the world (ask the victims of the childhood obesity epidemic how happy “Happy Meals” really are).

Nugget lovers don’t love nuggets, nugget lovers are consumers obeying their corporate overlords. Grow up. Eat tendies.