Fact Check: Chick-fil-A Food Packaging Purportedly Says, 'Made With 100% Heterosexual Chicken.' Here's the Truth

Claim:

A photo authentically shows Chick-fil-A packaging that reads, "Made with 100% heterosexual chicken."

Rating:

On May 29, 2024, the Facebook page The Language Nerds posted (archived) a picture appearing to show a container of fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A's chicken nuggets reading, "Made with 100% heterosexual chicken." The post received thousands of likes, comments and shares. Two days later, another user shared the photo in a new and similarly-popular post (archived). That second post also received thousands of engagements.

Other than those two popular posts, a reverse-image search on TinEye.com revealed numerous other postings of the same picture on X, Facebook, iFunny and YouTube. Snopes readers also asked about the photo in June 2024 emails.

This rumor involved nothing more than an altered picture, a conclusion we formed during our reverse-image searching.

The results on TinEye.com listed versions of the photo online. The oldest was dated 2008 and credited to the now-defunct DiseaseProof.com – a website once promising to "prevent and reverse disease with nutrition."

Since the website was no longer available, we copied the DiseaseProof.com link and pasted it into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, an internet archiving tool.

That tool revealed an article on the DiseaseProof.com featuring the original, unaltered version of the Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets photo. In that image, the packaging displayed one of Chick-fil-A's actual slogans, "We Didn't Invent The Chicken, Just The Chicken Sandwich."

That picture displayed a watermark for a Flickr user. That user was the apparent source of the photo.

The original Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets photo. (Courtesy: DiseaseProof.com via yummyinthetummyblog/Flickr)

It's unknown who, or what group, digitally created the "made with 100% heterosexual chicken" version of the picture. The manipulated image has been online for years; an Aug. 1, 2012, post on the former comedy website CollegeHumor.com (archived) displayed it.

The context of why the creator of the altered image would specifically target Chick-fil-A is found in the company's past. The National LGBTQ Task Force published, "The Chick-fil-A controversy stemmed from the millions of dollars the fast-food chain donated to anti-LGBTQ and hate groups over the years. Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A, also made hostile remarks against marriage equality."

On Nov. 18, 2019, the Chick-fil-A Foundation announced it would end donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes – two organizations criticized by LGBTQ+ groups. In the announcement, Chick-fil-A said its intention was to focus donation efforts specifically on organizations involved in education, homelessness and hunger.

Sources:

"Chick-Fil-A and LGBTQ Discrimination." National LGBTQ Task Force, https://www.thetaskforce.org/chick-fil-a-and-lgbtq-discrimination/.

"The Chick-Fil-A Foundation Shares Details of 2018 Charitable Donations." Chick-Fil-A Foundation via Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 18 Nov. 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20191119175259/https://www.chick-fil-afoundation.org/news-events/the-chick-fil-a-foundation-shares-details-of-2018-charitable-donations.

Greenfield, Beth. "Why Are People Mad at Chick-Fil-A? A Rundown of the Chain's Past and Present Anti-LGBTQ Controversies." Yahoo Life, 15 July 2021, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-are-people-mad-chick-fil-a-anti-lgbtq-controversies-205302238.html.

"Our Culture and Values." Chick-Fil-A, https://www.chick-fil-a.com/careers/culture.

Peacock, Aaron, and Aaron Peacock. "New Meat Standards from Chick-Fil-a Use Heterosexual Chicken." CollegeHumor.com, 1 Aug. 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20150105064529/http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6804751/new-meat-standards-from-chick-fil-a.

Pugliese, Gerald "Gerry." "Health Grades, McDonald's Gets a B!" Internet Archive Wayback Machine, DiseaseProof.com, 1 Aug. 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20080917155050/https://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/2008/08/.

Staff, Snopes. "Chick-Fil-A and Same-Sex Marriage." Snopes, 9 Mar. 2012, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/chick-fil-a-gay-marriage/.

TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://www.tineye.com/.

yummyinthetummyblog. "Chick-Fil-A: Nuggets." Flickr, 25 Jan. 2008, https://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyinthetummyblog/2219006276/.