Consumers cannot expect boneless chicken wings to actually be free of bones, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting claims by a restaurant patron who suffered serious medical complications from getting a bone stuck in his throat.
Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, and had ordered the usual — boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce — when he felt a bite-size piece of meat go down the wrong way. Three days later, feverish and unable to keep food down, Berkeimer went to the emergency room, where a doctor discovered a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and caused an infection.
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In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said Thursday that “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style, and that Berkheimer should’ve been on guard against bones since it’s common knowledge that chickens have bones. The high court sided with lower courts that had dismissed Berkheimer’s suit.
If I order boneless wings, and I get bones, I’m getting my fucking money back and not eating at that establishment ever again.
Not full bones, though. Just shards of bone that can seriously injure you
So what then is the difference between the boneless chicken wing cooking style and normal chicken wing cooking style? If it starts with “take a piece of chicken meat without any bones”, then what stops this line of argument from saying that it doesn’t matter how well they follow the recipe and thus restaurants can serve whatever they want to meet any order and then just say “we were following the (name of food) cooking style, not promising that, and are just bad at following that style or made up our own version”?
On a related note, how are judges determined to be qualified to make any decision? Are they supposed to be fair and intelligent, or just do their best to judge things in a fair and intelligent style?
That said, there was a bit of a fluke involved to have the bone go down the wrong way and also him not even notice for a few days. IMO in a proper decision, the restaurant shouldn’t have been fully liable for this incident, though they should have had some liability for that bone. And then some of that liability might be passed on to whoever provided them with the “boneless” chicken meat.
I don’t think you can easily judge a judge. Once you get the job, which very few do as you have to go for an additional degree for two years after law school, you’d have to really fuck up to lose your job.
Only the government/state can impeach a judge by popular vote of the officials. But there is no clear legal ground for this, it can only happen when they feel like it, or when there is evidence for criminal activity, bribery, which any serious individual can get away with pretty easily, or for a grossly immoral decision and a public outrage for that. That’s why it’s so rare.
Boneless is a “cooking style?” No. It’s which bag of chicken I pull out of the freezer before I even turn the oven on. I’m not going to sous vide the fucking bones out of my wings.
If the restaurant is deboning wings to order, fine. I’ll accept that. But then that shit had better be on the menu so I know to be careful.
Boneless wings are usually breaded chunks of rib meat, not actually wings at all. Sometimes a cooking style starts with cutting raw meat off of bones and into don’t-call-them-nuggets.
So they’re not boneless, and they’re not wings… Yet it’s the customer’s fault for not knowing exactly what they’re eating?
Hmmm, I wonder why they didn’t know… Could it be the blatant lies on the packaging?
It’s just how the industry markets chicken nuggets to adults “these aren’t children’s chicken nuggets, they’re BONELESS WINGS for manly men who enjoy suicide hot sauce”
I don’t know why but it reminds me of an American friend I had who couldn’t beleive we didn’t have limits on the amount maggots/maggots eggs allowed in fruit juice.
They refused to drink any fruit juice here until it had to be explained to them that the reason that there’s no acceptable limit on maggots/maggots eggs in our fruit juice is because ANY amount of maggot is over the acceptable amount.
Not their fault of course. We only know what we’re used to.
That doesn’t sound right. How can you guarantee zero fly/fruit fly eggs in something like orange juice with pulp. Fly eggs are tiny and can be found on fresh fruit skins even on the trees. Certain juices preclude the kind of filtration that could be used to achieve 100% fruit fly egg removal. I don’t know anything about European food regulations, but from a practical perspective it seems impossible to guarantee ZERO fruit fly egg contamination. Especially considering Europe tends to be more flexible with insects in food than the US such as Casu martzu.
I suspect if there really is no max insect parts limit, there is a procedural requirement that ensures contamination is kept low.
Thats probably because I never said its provably 100% free. So, no wonder it didn’t sound right.
I said no detectable level is acceptable. If you detect any in there, its bad.
We can detect single eggs. But they’re not putting the whole juice supply under the microscope, one slide at a time. So, it seems you’re saying “we don’t check”.
can’t wait for this to apply to gluten free, sugar free, nut free products. people can die from this shit.
“Decaf coffee”
It actually has 300000mg of caffeine
“It’s well known that coffee has caffeine in it. Skill issue.”
Decaf does actually still have caffeine, just normally like 97% less.
Which, I guess is like the boneless wings having 97% less bones, now in convinient needle shaped shards
Yeah, I feel like this is why it’s called decaffeinated rather than caffeine-free… Caffeine has been removed but not completely.
But while the word “less” means a smaller amount, the suffix of “less” means without, i.e. childless
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-less
Boneless doesn’t mean “less” bones. The dictionary and commonly understood meaning is “without bones”, and certainly without amounts of bone sufficient to cause significant injury when eating . It’s certainly not a “cooking style” as uncooked chicken cuts with bones removed are sold as boneless.
Apparently these judges are “brainless”
These judges have been bought by our corporate overlords.
The depressing part is just how little they cost…
Deboned chicken would make everyone happy but I guess that’s too logical
On a bit of a tangent, I’m Finnish and recently (as in the past year or two) there’s been Coke and Pepsi which literally say “caffeine-free” on the side. Not “decaffeinated”, but “caffeine-free”.
I think there’s been some sort of innovation in decaffenation or someone’s come up with a flavour/essence which replaces the ingredient with caffeine in it.
Decaf definitely has caffeine, as I’ve completely without caffeine at several points for several months (even avoiding chocolate mostly) and a “decaffeinated” beverage still made me clearly stimulated. A clear caffeine high.
NileRed has a nice video on him trying to decaf redbull and while he does succeed in extracting caffeine from it, he thinks it’s not even half he gets out. Ofc industrial systems are more effective, but it shows how difficult the process is to perfect. https://youtu.be/oY8tz1paj6o
Well, based on the principles of homeopathy, you made the coffee more powerful by diluting the amount of caffeine.
Lol
We’ve had caffeine-free Coke for years in the US. The difference is that the caffeine in Coke is added during manufacturing, so it’s easy to just leave out. Whereas the caffeine in coffee is naturally occurring, so needs to be removed to make it decaf, and just like in the NileRed video, it’s impossible to remove all of the caffeine.
We’ve had caffeine-free Coke for years in the US.
You’re not kidding. I googled it and it’s been a thing since the mid 80’s, lol. No idea why they only decided to sell some here in honestly the past year or two.
So amazingly stupid. The conservative justic’s “logic” here is a case-study in failing upwards. He tries to say that “nobody would think that chicken fingers are actual fingers.” Like, chicken fingers is a colloquial name, and is not the same as a fuckin descriptor adjective. He might as well say that dairy-free ice cream can have dairy in it, because “no reasonable person would think ice cream wouldn’t have dairy in it.”
what a joke. This brought to you by the same supreme court that has ruled against the will of Ohio voters who voted for an anti-gerrymandering bill, just to have a republican led commission drag it’s feet, presenting identical maps, and instead of allowing the usage of an actual fair map, they just threw the baby out with bathwater, leaving in place the terrible gerrymandered maps that heavily favor republicans till 2030.
Just another reason I’ll never move back to my home state. conservatives ruined it.
Ahh yes, another court in the pocket of corporations.
Some fat ass doesn’t chew his food and suddenly corporations win? You can never have perfection with organic products. What exactly do you want done to guarantee meat from a boned animal isn’t left in the meat? And how much will it cost to do it, and are you willing to pay for it?
*I’m glad Ohio judges are more intelligent than most of you all.
I hope you choke on chicken bone while reading The Jungle. I hope for your last moments to be ironic.
I doubt it. I chew my food.
Then break a tooth when you bite too hard on a “boneless chicken”
Or what, you gonna say you chew slowly too?
It’s actually kinda fucking insane of you to take the side of “business should be allowed to flat out lie to you, even after it almost kills someone”. Maybe talk with a psychiatrist about your lack of empathy. There’s probably a diagnosis for your level of sociopathy
Seems the judges on two different levels sided with me.
“appeal to republican judges” has to be the worst variant of appeal to authority.
Let’s be clear. Republican judges.
Legality isn’t morality, if your only defence to a moral charge is that it is legal then you are a wannabe slave owner born to the wrong time. Scum.
I’m just of the belief that it’s stupid to expect perfection from organic food sources.
why do you even worry about it, this doesn’t interfere with your boot diet.
What kind of hail corporate nonsense is this? Either call it “fewer bones” or have it be without bones. I don’t expect it to be a certain price but I expect boneless chicken to be just as boneless as it is chicken.
That’s a pretty ignorant take. "thing"less means without “thing”. Boneless means without bones. Without means there isn’t ANY in something.
THEIR process, which is not the customer’s problem to solve, should guarantee there are no bones left in any product labeled “boneless”, because that is how words and companies work…
You cost statement is irrelevant. It’s capitalism, baby! You make boneless stuff as advertised and set the price at what the market will accept. If your company can’t make “BONELESS” wings, then you don’t get to sell them until you figure out a cost effective way of doing it. Use a different word that isn’t a complete lie.
Judges can be bought and make stupid calls that only morons support…see also SCOTUS.
So just like all those “unlimited” phone plans with limits, “free” trials that require a credit card number and “lifetime” warranties that expire after a few years? Cool. Cool cool cool…
Slavery is freedom. War is peace. Boneless pizza can now have bones.
So… no company is beholden to anything that they say? Is that the gist…?
Pretty much. The correct outcome of every case is the one that benefits capital the most. Our current national Supreme Court has demonstrated that precedence can be ignored when convenient. They basically signaled to every other judge in the country that this kind of shit is fine.
Start with the decision and work backwards. Just make some shit up, nobody will do anything about it anyway.
So boneless wings can have bones… But do boned wings still have to have bones? I am a boneless wing enjoyer and I hate bone wings. Why waste all that effort eating around the bones when you can just not?
Boneless “wings” aren’t actually wings. They are cubes of white meat.
And almond milk isn’t actually milked from almond tiddies
And wait until you learn about baby oil
Don’t care, it’s still the superior chicken nugget form factor because it’s delicious and less tedious to deal with. I doubt boned chicken wings are 100% pure shenanigan-free meat anyway. Tbf, even if someone shows me reputable scientific sources saying boned wing meat is a zillion times more healthy or something, boneless chicken is far too good to give up.
Its getting where courts at every level are running contrary to logic and justice.
Courts have become infested with conservatives.
Would this logic extend to products labeled “alcohol-free”?
“Everyone knows beer has alcohol in it.”
I’d be more worried about a product claiming it has no peanuts in it now.
Just wait until you hear about “synthetic” motor oil.
(It’s been made from regular petroleum sources for a long time. It was argued in court that “synthetic” refers to a certain level of quality, not that it’s actually built synthetically from something other than oil out of the ground.)
On one hand, I accept that a boneless chicken wing has a tiny chance of containing some amount of bone, and can see where suing a restaurant over it, even if you injure yourself eating it, is a bit frivolous. Boneless chicken wings did come from a chicken with bones in it, and it’s weird to complain that the chicken wasn’t made into completely homogeneous pink slime before being turned into a nugget…
I don’t understand, however, how this made it to the state Supreme Court, resulting in this decision, which seemingly allows restaurants to outright lie about what they are serving.
Boneless chicken wings did come from a chicken with bones in it,
Sure but then someone prepared the chicken and decided that the outcome can be described as boneless. Personally, I would also expect the bones to have been removed.
You can debone chicken without turning it into pink slime.
I’d rather expect it to be made from another part of the chicken in the style of wings.It would be trivial and inexpensive to use an x-ray to check for bones and fragments.
I’m going to need a lot more details before this stops sounding like the craziest idea I’ve heard all month.
X-ray machines are extremely common in industrial inspection processes. https://www.cassel-inspection.com/x-ray-inspection-machine
X-ray would be ideal to spot bone because there’s huge contrast. That’s why you get an x-ray for bones, opposed to an MRI which would be used for soft tissues.
Sure, verifying chicken is deboned before it leaves the factory makes more sense than installing x-ray machines at every pizzeria.
I never proposed doing it at every pizzeria. Production facilities where they make boneless wings in bulk. A human might not even be involved.
But yeah, if the human leaves a bone in the chicken, they’re doing their job wrong…
