The Truth Is Out: McDonald's Nuggets Have Four Distinct Shapes Including "Boot"

You haven't lived until you've spent half an hour staring at a McDonald's chicken nugget, going cross-eyed in an attempt to describe its shape. Is it a spherical chicken? A human face? Just a blob? Turns out it's none of the above. According to McDonald's Canada, McNuggets are actually formed into four distinct shapes: the ball, the bell, the boot, and the bow tie (also called "the bone").

An old YouTube video the company released in 2014 has resurfaced online (we saw it in the Mirror) showing how the scrumptious McNuggets are made. Couple fun facts here: the chicken meat in your McNuggets is ground before it's seasoned and mixed. Then the magic happens. The video shows how each individual nugget is pressed by a mold into one of the four distinct shapes. The nuggets are then covered in two layers of batter before being part-fried, frozen, and sent off to McDonald's restaurants.

Why is it so hard to discern the different nugget shapes in the final product?Business Insider reports that McDonald's standardizes the shapes and sizes of its nuggets for the sake of consistent cooking times. But the fun, ketchup-holding ridges remain. "Our Chicken McNuggets are shaped uniquely for kids and kids at heart — it makes dipping more fun," the company wrote in a post on its website, which has since been removed. In the video, a McDonald's Canada representative also explains that "three [shapes] would've been too few," while five "would've been, like, wacky." Regardless, I think we can agree that the boot's extra crunchy corner makes all the difference.