The chicken usedwas boneless and skinless in order to reduce in homogeneities. Each chicken nugget had a diameter of
about 4.2 cm, thickness of about 1.27 and weighed 18 g. The nuggets were par fried at 175 C and 190 C for 26e30 s with
regular soybean oil. The parfrying helped to stabilize the coating on the nuggets. The MC nuggets were prepared in the 1st batch followed by the second batch of control nuggets. The equipment was washed thoroughly after the first set of nuggets was formed in order to prevent mixing of the two different predust applications. Finally, the nuggets were packed, labeled with specific treatment name and the parfrying temperature, and sent to the blast freezer for storage. The frozen samples were shipped overnight to Texas Tech University in insulated boxes with dry ice (solid carbon dioxide coolant). The samples were then stored at
12 C during the course of experiments to prevent deterioration