Chicken nuggets are a popular snack among kids. Those who want to avoid animal suffering are increasingly turning to vegan alternatives. But they are not real alternatives: In the “Ökotest” the nugget products perform worse than the products with chicken meat in terms of ingredients. As in the “Ökotest” chicken nugget test, “Burger King” and “Iglo” were among the losers in this test. Other taillights are the products from “McDonald’s”, the brand “Like Meat” as well as “Veganz”, “The Vegetarian Butcher” and “Penny”.
Half of the products get bad marks because they contain mineral oil components. In particular, the values in the “Like Meat Like Nuggets”, the “Bio Bio Vegane Nuggets” and the “Iglo Green Ciuisine Vegane “Chicken” Nuggets” reach the “highly increased” level. MOSH/MOSH analogues accumulate in the human body and are the largest contaminant there. The health consequences are unclear.
Although the nuggets contain no animal products but plant-based raw materials, it must be clear that the nuggets are industrially manufactured finished products. Some of these are full of additives. Manufacturers rely not only on vegetables and grains, but also on thickeners and flavors. “Ökotest” also complained about the phosphate additives. They write: “Large amounts of phosphates can damage the kidneys. In our opinion, manufacturers should therefore avoid the additive. The products from The Vegetarian Butcher and Veganz are fortified with iron (iron diphosphate). The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) advises against iron additives in food.”
If you don’t want to do without nuggets, you can use these four vegan products: The nuggets from the brands “Endori”, “Green Legend”, “Globus” and “Rügenwalder Mühle” achieve an overall rating of “good”, also with regard to the ingredients. Ökotest writes: “So nugget fans who don’t want to eat chicken have an alternative.”
You can read the entire test for a fee at oekotest.de!
