Wing-Less ‘Wyngz’: The New Fast-Food Favorite

  • Share
  • Read Later
Brand X Pictures - Getty Images

DiGiorno’s new “Pizza and Boneless Wyngz” combo isn’t just missing bones. It’s missing wings, too.

In the new “Thought for Food” section on his primetime Comedy Central show, Stephen Colbert debunked the myth of the “Wyngz.” Holding up a DiGiorno box of “Pizza & Boneless Wyngz” Colbert enlightens us as to what is actually in the breaded bites. Or, more precisely, what isn’t … wing meat.

(More on TIME.com: See the Top 10 Food Trends here)

But far from being a sneaky tactic, the lack of wings in “wyngz” is entirely indulged by government guidelines. It’s clearly written on the USDA’s Food and Safety Inspection Service: “The FSIS allows the use of the term “wyngz” to denote a product that is in “the shape of a wing or a bite-sized appetizer type product” but that contains no wing meat but only under certain conditions. These conditions include the stipulation that the poultry used is white chicken (with or without skin) and that “a prominent, conspicuous, and legible descriptive name (e.g., “contains no wing meat”) is placed in close proximity to the descriptive name and linked to “wyngz” by use of an asterisk.”

DiGiorno‘s pizza and “wyngz” combo is the most recent creation to come from the take-out beating frozen food company, and was released at the same time as their pizza and cookie dough combo. From the sublime to the ridiculous. (Via Consumer Reports)

(More on TIME.com: Read about Taco Bell’s meatless meat here)