Why McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets Come in Only 4 Shapes

(Photo: Kim Bhasin/Business Insider)

It’s 2 AM and you’re scarfing down a double order of Chicken McNuggets that have sat in your refrigerator since last week. You’re in a hurry to eat them before they spoil and become too unhealthy to eat. But you’re also curious: the heavenly McNuggets appear to fit into regular shapes.

Hayley Peterson of Business Insider investigated and discovered that McDonald’s identifies 4 standard McNugget shapes: the ball, the bell, the boot, and the bone, which is sometimes called the bow tie. Why?

"Our Chicken McNuggets are shaped uniquely for kids and kids at heart  — it makes dipping more fun!" the company wrote.

So why just four shapes?

According to the chain, "three would've been too few. Five would've been, like, wacky."

This seems like an inadequate answer. McDonald’s must be hiding something sinister.

-via VA Viper


The best (not from an insider) explanation I've seen is that if they were all the same shape it would be too obvious that the nuggets were chopped and formed and not made from naturally occurring pieces. But the more different shapes they made the more trouble, so they settled on four, and these specific four, to obscure their makeup just enough for more people to be less conscious of their not-naturalness. It's a good theory, even if a kind of a 'conspiracy theory'.
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They got it wrong.
"Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Nugget in the direction of thine mouth, that, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
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