Can't fly on one wing.

So you may have heard that there's a little football contest on Sunday, and you know that means chicken wings and lots of them. The National Chicken Council claims that 1.25 billion chicken wings will be eaten during the game---or they did until the Chicago Tribune called chicknanigans on them. They then said that would be the amount of wings consumed all weekend, which is definitely cheating. But whether during Super Bowl parties or all weekend long, 1.25 billion  is still, let's face it, one whale of a lot of wings.

I like Buffalo wings well enough, and had some last night in fact, helping to warm me up while our temperatures dropped like the Hindenburg. I guess Friday night puts my total in with the 1.25 billion, then.

But I do think McDonald's and Burger King both had an excellent idea, one that will eat into the wing totals, so to speak: Fifty chicken nuggets for a discount price (like, around $10). I assume they come with an assortment of dipping sauces. It's a great idea for the protein element of your Super Bowl noshing. Unlike getting or making actual wings, you don't have to worry that your wings are too wimpy or too deadly for your crowd; you don't have to supply the tub of blue cheese; you don't worry about finding chicken bones around until Spring Training; and you don't have to cut up and clean celery. Box of nuggets, packets of sauce, knock yourselves out. Here's Doritos for dessert.

The question is, do fast-food chicken nuggets contain wing meat? If so, they may contribute to the 1.25 billion wing total. Wings are white meat, and these nuggets are supposed to be white meat, so maybe. But who knows? After all, parts is parts.