KFC's new fake chicken nuggets are really gross

KFC is the latest fast-food giant to claim that “plant-based” chicken can 
taste as good as the real thing — but the chain picked the wrong faux fowl 
to make its case.

The chain’s supposedly long-awaited Beyond Nuggets (six for $7.99) are 
beyond awful — worse than KFC’s near-flavorless real-meat chicken tenders.

The fake chicken from within KFC’s new offerings come from Beyond Meat, a 
rival to Impossible Foods, which created the famous Impossible Burger. The 
idea behind offering artificial chicken at KFC is to “democratize plant-
based protein,” according to Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown.

But this bogus bird would not fool a 7-month-old experiencing solid food 
for the first time.

I wanted to taste the thing separate from the hype — and from the oily, 
over-seasoned, “eleven-spiced” breading that scorched my tongue like a 
blowtorch. After some work, I managed to extract the miserly, vegan morsel 
that seemed glued inside its nugget. Once freed, the spongy, solid matter 
did not taste remotely like real chicken, much of which doesn’t actually 
taste like chicken these days, thanks to factory farming and antibiotics.

It also didn’t taste like something experts have spent two years 
developing. It tasted like seitan, the wheat-based gluten bomb that for 
decades has been a go-to among vegetarians as a meat substitute.

Which is to say: It tasted like nothing.

Yes, there was mouth feel — the salty, crisp-and-mush blur that’s soothing 
when you’re the last customer in the bar at 2 a.m. But the ersatz nuggets 
aren’t anything you’d want to consume sober or in daylight.

Not even vegetarian
And they’re not actually vegetarian. Yes, they are made from a laboratory 
compound of “pea fiber,” flour, wheat gluten, yeast and other plant-based, 
mouth-watering substances, but they are fried in the same oil that the 
fast food chain uses for real chicken.

This flavorless fowl isn’t going to save the world, nor will it make you 
live longer.  

Although the Beyond bites boast of having 40% less saturated fat than 
actual chicken nuggets, any direct benefits from this down the road would 
likely be negligible. “In terms of nutrition, it won’t make much 
difference,” said Consumer Reports nutritionist Amy Keating in the 
magazine’s recent review of Beyond Nuggets. And, health seemed to be 
optional in general at the eat-in KFC at 408 Eighth Ave., where they 
didn’t ask for vaccination proof on either of my two visits.

Beyond Meat hopes to exploit a mini-boom in plant-based “meats,” a market 
that’s risen to $1.4 billion in the US and might double in five years. It 
still represents a minuscule portion of the near-$200 billion US real-meat 
market, which is projected to hit $215 billion by 2028.

A better option
David Chang’s much smaller Fuku chain lent the shtick a modicum of 
respectability when it launched Impossible Nuggies ($8.09 for eight 
nuggets), made by Impossible Foods, in September. Marcus Samuelsson even 
briefly added his own spin on Impossible nuggets to his Red Rooster menu. 

For my money, Fuku’s Nuggies definitely beat KFC’s — but it’s a relative 
thing.

The square, greaseless nuggets packed a pleasing crackle. The breading’s 
light and crisp, the spices restrained. The imposter Impossible “chicken” 
has a real-meat texture and almost tastes like it.

But it’s still less convincing than Impossible Burger “beef” — maybe 
because it doesn’t use heme, the lab-generated protein that gives the 
burger its beef-like aroma, texture and “bleed.”

There’s hope for the Nuggies. After all, Impossible enormously improved 
its beef-less burger after a widely ridiculed 2016 rollout.

There’s no hope, though, for KFC’s Beyond Chicken. It should go back to 
the lab — for good.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/14/kfcs-beyond-nuggets-are-really-gross/