I have an unhealthy addiction to chicken nuggets but I’m fine with it

Everyone likes chicken nuggets (except vegans and vegetarians). If you’re a meat eater, you’re probably a nugget eater. Nobody can resist these bad boys. But most people stopped eating them on the reg when they hit Year Five and decided they were sophisticated enough to have pasta after school.

I have still not hit that stage. Most students make pasta as a go-to lazy dinner but I think I’ve cooked pasta twice in my three years at uni. I will eat chicken nuggets multiple times a week, and I’m not even ashamed. My go-to meal is chicken nuggets, peas and some form of potato (roast, baked or chips). I probably have them 3-4 times a week and eat around 20 nuggets every week.

I’m not here for this judgement, Tarik

A lot of people take the piss out of me for it but I honestly don’t care. When I was sixteen, my boyfriend at the time took me on holiday with his family to France. One night we went out to this nice restaurant, and I ordered the chicken nuggets off the kids menu with no shame while they tucked into duck a l’orange and fancy soups and shit. They took the piss out of me all night, but I enjoyed my food so what the hell. And I saved them money. Jeez, so ungrateful.

When it comes to types of nuggets, I have weeded out my preferences and the best places to go. McDonald’s is, of course, the best place to get nuggets out and about. You can’t say no to a sharebox unless someone’s trying to actually share it with you.

Get in me

However, Egham doesn’t have a McDonald’s, and not all of us can afford to keep up a nugget-rich lifestyle by eating out every night. If you don’t fancy trekking to Staines, I’ve also worked out the best place to get nuggets out in Egham is the Big Fry fish and chip shop by the high street. Classic nugs. If you’re more into strips and fillets (which are pretty much just as good), head over to Runnymede – but I didn’t need to tell you that, did I?

If you’re looking to have nuggets at home, the best route to take is to go for dippers rather than the classic nugget style. The nuggets you get in the shops are usually breaded and just not as great. What you wanna do is go for Tesco own brand battered dippers. They come in packs of 44, so if you’re like me, you’re sorted for the next fortnight, and it’s great value for money.

These are the bad boys you want in your oven

I’ve heard rumours you can get a pack of 150 nuggets in Iceland for a fiver but I’m yet to try this out. This probably wouldn’t even last that long for me: I’ll have a non-nugget meal maybe once or twice a week, but on the other days it’s usually nuggets and chips with some veg. Don’t get me wrong I do like other foods, I just can’t be arsed cooking them. With nuggets I know I’ll always be satisfied.

I’ve got emotional about nuggets before. I’ve had a drunk cry in the past about them, God knows why. My housemate had a birthday party and one of her friends put all my nuggets in the oven, started to cook them, then turned the oven off to go to the club and left them, cold but partially cooked and inedible. I was fuming. I was holding back the tears as I scraped them into the bin the next morning.

I even send drunk emotional snapchats about them

And yes, OK, yes, I know – nuggets are evil. I know they’re made in disgusting ways and most of the time the chickens are treated like shit. When I start earning a salary and am no longer a poor student, I fully intend to cut down on nuggets and eat free range, organic meat. Heck, I’ll probably even learn to cook actual meals. But right now, I’m a student with a disgusting kitchen I share with other people, and the easiest way to have dinner quickly before going out is to shove some nuggets in the oven and get out of that messy hell.

So there you have it. I have a problem, but I’ve come to terms with it. I just can’t get enough of those gosh damn nuggs. Don’t judge please, and maybe, in time, I can move forward and start eating eating something else.