Overview
This provisional ingredient page records source-specific measurements for chicken nuggets. Its population contamination profile has not been synthesized. See Ingredients for the ingredient inventory.
Heavy metal contamination profile
| Analyte | Coverage | Typical (ppb) | Confidence | Key sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lead (Pb) | pending | — | — | — |
| cadmium (Cd) | pending | — | — | — |
| inorganic arsenic (iAs) | pending | — | — | — |
| total arsenic (tAs) | pending | — | — | — |
| total mercury (tHg) | pending | — | — | — |
| nickel (Ni) | pending | — | — | — |
| aluminum (Al) | pending | — | — | — |
| chromium (Cr) | pending | — | — | — |
| tin (Sn) | pending | — | — | — |
| uranium (U) | pending | — | — | — |
The profile fields remain pending until an evidence synthesis supports a population estimate. Source observations are listed separately below.
Reported measurements
The population contamination profile on this page is unchanged. These notes do not set a typical value, an upper-tail value, or a certification limit.
Chicken nuggets, Multan retail, wet weight
Rehman and colleagues measured six coded nugget treatments. Values are mg/kg on a wet weight basis. Arsenic is not speciated. Mercury is not methylmercury. A nugget-row sample size is not printed. The 108-sample frame covers six product types, not nuggets alone. Nickel, aluminum, and tin were not measured. Data gap for those metals. Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy
| Study | Design | Metal | Finding | Units and basis | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy | Six coded nugget rows, Table 1 | Cadmium | 0.015 to 0.052 mg/kg | mg/kg, wet weight | not printed per row |
| Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy | Six coded nugget rows, Table 1 | Lead | 0.014 to 0.108 mg/kg; T1 is 0.108 ± 0.004 mg/kg | mg/kg, wet weight | not printed per row |
| Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy | Six coded nugget rows, Table 1 | Arsenic | 0.238 to 0.559 mg/kg | mg/kg, wet weight; not speciated | not printed per row |
| Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy | Six coded nugget rows, Table 1 | Mercury | 0.0027 to 0.0098 mg/kg | mg/kg, wet weight; not methylmercury | not printed per row |
Spiked recoveries were 93% to 106%. The full six-row grid is on the source note.
Chicken nuggets, metal excretion, and the gut studies behind lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury
Nuggets combine a fried matrix with the metals reported on this page: lead, cadmium, total arsenic, and mercury. One mouse summary is directly about diet form: a high-fat diet changed how much arsenic, cadmium, and lead left in feces. The other papers are biomarker or drinking-water studies. A processor should treat fat content, metal panel, and microbiome claims as three different records.
Sitarik et al. 2020 measured tooth lead and stool microbiota at 1 month and 6 months in 146 maternal-child pairs in the Detroit-area WHEALS cohort. In utero tooth lead was associated with fungal community composition at 1 month. Lead was not associated with overall bacterial community structure. Taxon-level bacterial shifts were higher Collinsella at 1 month, higher Bilophila at 6 months, and lower Bacteroides. The direction is lead exposure toward microbiota composition. Tooth lead is a biomarker, not a concentration in this ingredient.
Zhang et al. 2015, per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.5b00237, gave mice 10 mg/L cadmium in drinking water for 10 weeks. Firmicutes and gamma-proteobacteria decreased in feces after 4 weeks, and Firmicutes decreased in cecum contents after 10 weeks. The direction is cadmium toward gut microbiota, alongside hepatic energy-metabolism changes in the same animals. The summary does not name a food.
Lu et al. 2014, per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.1289/ehp.1307429, reported that 10 ppm arsenic in drinking water for 4 weeks perturbed gut microbiome composition in C57BL/6 mice and perturbed gut-microflora-related metabolites. The recorded abstract does not name the arsenic species. The direction is arsenic toward microbiota and metabolites. The summary does not support an arsenic concentration in this ingredient.
Coe et al. 2023 paired a human cohort with gnotobiotic mice colonized with human microbiota. Gut microbes demethylated a fraction of ingested methylmercury, and the resulting inorganic mercury was preferentially excreted in feces rather than absorbed. Demethylation efficiency varied between people and was associated with taxa that carry mer operon machinery. The direction is gut microbiota toward methylmercury demethylation and elimination. The source page does not print one numeric fraction and does not give a methylmercury concentration in this ingredient.
Per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01604, Liu et al. 2020 fed C57BL/6 mice a normal diet or a high-fat diet for 10 weeks, with 100 ppm arsenic, cadmium, or lead in drinking water. Mice on the high-fat diet accumulated more of each metal in liver and kidney and excreted less of each metal in feces. The direction the authors report is diet and gut microbiota toward metal accumulation and fecal excretion. No local PDF extraction is on a wiki source page, so this paragraph stays labeled as a summary. The diets were not this ingredient.
Study table
| Study | Model | Metal and dose | Main finding | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitarik et al. 2020 | Human infants; tooth lead and stool; n = 146 | Lead; tooth biomarker, not a food dose | Fungal composition at 1 month shifted; overall bacterial structure did not | Not this ingredient |
| Zhang et al. 2015 | Mice; drinking water; 10 weeks | Cadmium; 10 mg/L | Lower fecal Firmicutes and gamma-proteobacteria by 4 weeks | Per WikiBiome source summary; not this ingredient |
| Lu et al. 2014 | Mice; drinking water; 4 weeks | Arsenic; 10 ppm; species not named in the recorded abstract | Microbiome composition and related metabolites perturbed | Per WikiBiome source summary; not this ingredient |
| Coe et al. 2023 | Human cohort and gnotobiotic mice | Ingested methylmercury; fraction not printed as one number | Microbiota demethylated methylmercury; inorganic mercury was preferentially fecal | Not a concentration in this ingredient |
| Liu et al. 2020 | Mice; 10 weeks; normal or high-fat diet | Arsenic, cadmium, or lead; 100 ppm in water | High-fat diet lowered fecal metal excretion and raised organ metals | Summary only, DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01604; not this ingredient |
What remains uncertain
The high-fat mouse diets were not nuggets, and the metal doses were 100 ppm in drinking water. Mercury evidence is methylmercury demethylation, not total mercury in breading or muscle. No study cited here sequenced stool after a nugget feeding.
FDA TDS FY2018–FY2020 source observations
FDA measured the prepared foods named below. Each row describes that food and preparation, not every form of this ingredient. Values are µg/kg (ppb) on the FDA sample basis. ND means not detected; it is not a measured zero. Reporting limits can vary between composites. FY2018-FY2020 TDS Elements Analytical Results
| FDA food and preparation | Analyte | Composites | Detected | Detected concentrations (ppb) | Reporting limits (ppb) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | tAs | 27 | 4 | 3.1–4.8 | 3 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | Cd | 27 | 27 | 1.1–8.3 | 1 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | Cr | 27 | 22 | 66–200 | 50 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | Pb | 27 | 1 | 4.3 | 4 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | tHg | 27 | 0 | ND in all composites | 1 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | Ni | 27 | 26 | 73–190 | 40 |
| 241: Chicken nuggets, fast-food | U | 27 | 15 | 1.1–4 | 1 |
References
Works cited in this page’s text, in first-appearance order. See Sources for this page’s source inventory. Each title links to a source record with bibliographic details, reported findings, and document provenance.
- Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Metals in Processed Poultry Products Using Atomic Absorption SpectroscopyPeer-reviewed
- Fetal and early postnatal lead exposure measured in teeth associates with infant gut microbiotaPeer-reviewed
- Subchronic Exposure of Mice to Cadmium Perturbs Their Hepatic Energy Metabolism and Gut MicrobiomePeer-reviewed
- Arsenic Exposure Perturbs the Gut Microbiome and Its Metabolic Profile in Mice: An Integrated Metagenomics and Metabolomics AnalysisPeer-reviewed
- Assessing the Role of the Gut Microbiome in Methylmercury Demethylation and Elimination in Humans and Gnotobiotic MicePeer-reviewed
- FY2018-FY2020 TDS Elements Analytical ResultsDataset
Sources
Sources catalogued for this page. The last column says how each source is used here.
| # | Citation | Year | Type | Used on this page for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FDA 2022. FY2018-FY2020 TDS Elements Analytical Results, FDA Total Diet Study | 2022 | Government dataset | US-FDA Pb, Cd, tAs, iAs, tHg, Ni, Cr, U, Sb occurrence in 3276 prepared food, beverage and water composites across 307 TDS foods, FY2018-FY2020 US collections (n=3276) |
Update history
No substantive edit history is available in this build. The full commit record is available in git.