this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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‘Boneless’ chicken wings can have bones, the Ohio Supreme Court says

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/25/nx-s1-5052004/boneless-chicken-wings-ohio-supreme-court

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I agree with the dissent in this case. What kind of Alice in wonderland bullshit are we living in where when you say boneless, you actually mean "THERE MAY BE BONES OVER AN INCH LONG IN THEM!"??

Words have meaning. It really shows how much these fuckers are cutting corners. If anything it's negligence for allowing a product such as this to reach the customer, get lodged in his throat, slice open his esophagus, get infected, and require two surgeries.

If the boneless wings had glass in them, would they be held negligent?

Here's the bit of dissent from the article.

"Dissenting Justices argued that a jury should have been allowed to determine whether the restaurant and suppliers were negligent, and called Deters' reasoning “utter jabberwocky.”

“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people,” wrote Justice Michael P. Donnelly in dissent."

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I can understand tiny pieces of bone making it in there, but a 1 and 3/8ths inch bone. That's nearly the length of the wing! It just seems like negligence on the meat processor (not necessarily on the restaurant)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

I take this as a positive. The Ohio Supreme Court just protected trans rights, when it applies to nuggets.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Granted I've never been injured, but I've gotten small pieces of bone shards several times throughout my life from shredded chicken type stuff.

I dunno if they refused to pay medical bills because that'd be fucked.

But if you kill a creature, cook and debone it, yeah, occasionally a bit of bone will make it through.

You can still call it boneless, because you knew you were buying meat from a creature that normally has bones and an effort has been made to remove said bones.

I hate to say I side with the Ohio Supreme Court but I think I do.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago

The difference is that this was a significant piece of bone, over an inch long. Bone chips are one thing, whole pieces of bone is another thing entirely.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

The bone was 1 and 3/8 inch long. That's not a bone piece. That's just a fucking bone.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (4 children)

And you chucklefucks say we vegans eat weird shit...

My seitan nuggets taste the same and I didn't have to kill anyone, or anything, and I don't have to worry about some poor child in a factory on the other side of the country removing bones so I don't have to deal with the horrors of factory farming.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Other than not eating the meat of an animal, i don't think vegan can claim superiority about all the other stuff. Someone have to plant and harvest and process and make your vegan nugget, you know...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I think it's more cause of all the news coverage about underage kids working in meat packing plants lately.

Idk if there is a similar problem in other parts of agriculture, wouldn't surprise me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

And it’s no more or less likely to be a “child in the other side of the country”

(?)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Surprising, a vegan coming somewhere, unprompted, to decry their moral superiority. The only things as reliable are "get a real measurement system" and "oh, that's a problem? I use Linux."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I didn’t have to kill anyone, or anything,

most people don't kill anything for nonvegan nuggets

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

I do. This is why I am banned from McDonalds worldwide.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A vegitable field is absent of any insects, birds, or rodents, they were all slaughtered, starved, or poisoned to bring you your vegi nuggets.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Fair point, agribusiness is harmful in many ways.

That doesn't mean that someone can't say "X is More harmful than Y"

I imagine they could point to the many similar environmental harms and modifications down for meat farming

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Milton: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.

Praline: That's as maybe, it's still a frog.

Milton: What else?

Praline: Well don't you even take the bones out?

Milton: If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it?

Praline: Superintendent Parrot ate one of those.

Parrot: Excuse me a moment. (exits hurriedly)

Milton: It says 'crunchy frog' quite clearly.

Praline: Well, the superintendent thought it was an almond whirl. People won't expect there to be a frog in there. They're bound to think it's some form of mock frog.

Milton: (insulted) Mock frog? We use no artificial preservatives or additives of any kind!

Praline: Nevertheless, I must warn you that in future you should delete the words 'crunchy frog', and replace them with the legend 'crunchy raw unboned real dead frog', if you want to avoid prosecution.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Funny headline aside, semantics and trying to understand expected meanings of words and phrases is fucky and makes for an interesting case. Per the article the court decision was only 4-3 (i.e., close), and the dissent seemed -- as a person who admittedly is not well-versed in the language normally used by Ohio's Supreme Court -- to be pretty strongly opinionated.

From the snippets in the article I find it pretty easy to sympathize with both sides of the argument!


edit: the full text is available here (the original unarchived source is being hammered by curious people) - you can download the file to read it in full-res

The question seems to be: "did the restaurant exercise reasonable duty of care". There is a lot more to the case than the fun-but-sensationalized headline and even article.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Not surprised this happened in Ohio

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

A guy ate boneless wings and got a bone stuck in his throat leading to multiple surgeries so he sued. But he didn't notice when it happened?

The longer I think about this the more I agree with the decision. It sounds dumb, there shouldn't be bones, but if you're chopping up a chicken breast with the rib bones still attached, I could see how a bone could accidentally make its way into a nugget. So I can understand what they mean by saying it's a cooking style.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. We shouldn't carve exceptions into the law for carelessness, IMO. If bones are making it through the deboning process, then the deboning process is inadequate. The solution is to do better at deboning, not to loosen the requirements on how you label the product.

If anything, the legislation this should've brought about is one that puts a higher requirement on what can or cannot be called "boneless". Words have meaning, and if we just pretend they don't, people get hurt. Hell, we have a stricter legal definition for "cheese" than "boneless". Nobody's going to injure themselves on a slice of Kraft because they mistook it for real cheese, but you can seriously hurt yourself by eating something that was promised to be boneless and that turns out to be untrue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We aren't really carving an exception though. The condition of something being free of another substance is always a percentage chance.

My hand sanitizer only kills 99.99% of germs. Should it not be allowed to be called hand sanitizer because it cannot kill all of them? What should it be called? Hand almost-sanitizer? Those germs could get me pretty sick if I lose the cosmic lottery.

There's always a point in reality where "good enough" is actually good enough.

I'm not actually saying this company has or hasn't met that standard, I'm not an expert in poultry production techniques, but saying something needs to be 100% perfect to be sold doesn't make things safer it just means it'd be illegal to debone wings without grinding up the chicken. I dunno the actual odds but it sounds like you're already more likely to be struck by lightning than this occurring, and I'm still willing to go outside while its raining.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

My hand sanitizer only kills 99.99% of germs. Should it not be allowed to be called hand sanitizer because it cannot kill all of them?

I'd agree with this comparison if the ruling meant that they had to advertise their wings as "~99.9% boneless" the same way hand sanitizer labels itself as being ~99.9% effective.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That'd be funny and also still accurate. It'd end up being one of those asterisks.

I think that's a fair result.

Either way, they'd be allowed to sell the 99.99% boneless wings, despite them technically not being guaranteed boneless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The menu next week will contain a asterisk small print "customers are advised that while all care is taken, some bones may be present"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Your hand sanitizer doesn't advertise germ-free, it advertises 99.9% germ free. It'd be a problem if they advertised it as germ free, and it wasn't

99.9% boneless wings, sure. That's fine. You expect a leftover bone here and there. Who the fuck is gonna buy 99.9% boneless wings, though? No one. You know that, I know that, and advertisers know that. So they label it in a misleading factor to sell more.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

All the fast food workers in Ohio should start making sure that they they get some good bones in there every time they go for fast food chicken.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok as someone not from the states, wtf are boneless chicken wings?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

we call the 2 cuts of meat we traditionally take off of poultry’s arms “wings.” typically you’ll get one half of the arm versus another. you’d either get a drumstick wing, with all the meat on one bone; or flats, which have less meat & two bones, much like your lower arm.

chicken wings served this way are very popular here but many do not like or do not want to deal with the bones. so additionally, processed “boneless” chicken wings are available. they’re exactly the same thing as chicken nuggets usually, just bigger. ground poultry reconstituted into morsels

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I would argue that unlike nuggets they are cuts off the chicken breast and you can still see "threads" of meat as opposed to nuggets which are ground into a paste. I know it's a home recipe but this is what I usually experience at restaurants https://www.persnicketyplates.com/boneless-wings/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Ok so like an Ohio Boneless Wing is just a regular wing, with the bone in?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

it's joever.