Science trumps Scaremongering again
March 29th, 2007 Chris
Tags: science | Comments Off
Molecule of the Day takes on last week’s report that chicken nuggets contain a toxic substance known as TBHQ. As you might guess, that turns out to be less than accurate. First of all, the dose is tiny:
A nugget containing the claimed maximum, 0.02 percent, would require you to eat 5kg to attain a TBHQ dose of 1 gram. A 20-piece order has a mass of 320g. A maximally-preserved batch of nuggets would require one to eat 312.5 nuggets (13,125 kcal/54,915 kJ) to obtain this dose.
Secondly, just because the compound contains a butyl group, that doesn’t mean it’s lighter fluid:
TBHQ contains a butyl moiety (a tert-butyl moiety, more accurately), but so does butter, which contains esters of the blameless butyrate. . . Butter is not lighter fluid, nor is TBHQ:
Yet another pseudoscientific claim bites the dust.