Ever wonder why your kids refuse to eat that expertly prepared, fresh-out-of-the-oven roasted chicken you made for dinner but will devour an unending amount of store-bought chicken nuggets?

Leave it to Dr. Oz — the health pro who uncovers the truth behind our favorite store-bought foods (we're looking at you, rotisserie chicken!) — to head up an investigation into the hidden ingredients found in the kid-friendly chicken nuggets you buy from your grocery store's frozen food aisle.

With the help of food journalist Jenna Wolfe, they discovered a shocking additive: "There's sugar in a lot of these nuggets, which you might not think of being in a savory food like this," she said. "Sugar is a way these nuggets hook you into craving them." Although it's often right on the ingredient list, many health-conscious parents can still get duped. "It . . . can also be disguised as evaporated cane juice or evaporated corn syrup," she noted.

OK, so that's not great, but at least they're getting protein, right?

Wrong, reveals Dr. Oz. A typical 4-ounce serving of grilled chicken breast has 32 grams of protein, and the same 4 ounces in nugget form gets you only 9 grams. Their investigation did find some nugget brands with as high as 21 grams, but that's a far cry from what real chicken offers. The reason for such a differential is that, as you might have guessed, chicken nuggets aren't just chicken but a chicken mixture of sorts. "Anytime you see a chicken or a piece of a nugget shaped like a house or a viking, that's not natural chicken," Wolfe said. "It's mainly ground-up chicken, and when you have a ground-up mix, then you can mold it and shape it, market it to kids, and parents go out and buy it."

As for what protein kids do get from nuggets, the added ingredients like sugar can essentially outweigh the benefits. As Dr. Oz – who recommends making your own version of nuggets at home or looking for brands touting chicken breast meat specifically – concluded, "They frustrate me more than anything else because you think you're doing the right thing for your family."

For more eye-opening, stomach-churning discoveries about chicken nuggets, check out the full Dr. Oz segments below: