I recently received an email from my friend Beth. I’m always a little skeptical when I get an email from her because I never know if it will be a happy update about her family or if she will be on one of her tirades about how people are ruining the world by eating so much meat.
Now don’t get me wrong. Beth is a lovely person and a good friend. She is a stay-at- home mom and is also a dietician. Beth is one of those people who you don’t really want to go to dinner with. Not because she wouldn’t be great company but because she never orders exactly from the menu. The dressing has to be on the side of the salad. The veggies need to be blanched and not steamed. The last two times we went out for lunch, the chefs had to come to the table so she could give them specific instructions on how to prepare her food. I was afraid to eat my meal because I wasn’t sure if the chef would take their frustration with her out on my meal.
A couple of months ago, I ran into Beth and her three adorable children in the grocery store. The youngest one, who is 5, picked up the caramel coated popcorn from my cart and said very loudly, ‘Do you know this stuff has 16 grams of sugar in each serving? That’s a lot’. I smiled and suddenly remembered that I needed to hurry home for something. So when Beth emailed me that she needed to talk to me, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
After a few days of ‘just missing’ her calls, I called her back. She immediately started, ‘You won’t believe this! I just learned about a sandwich that is using fried chicken in the place of bread!!!’ I could tell that she was upset but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I initially thought that this was some food item on the menu at a small restaurant somewhere and that she was getting all huffy for no reason.
She went on to explain that this ‘sandwich’ consisted of two fried chicken filets with bacon, cheese and a special sauce between. And it wasn’t at some small restaurant; it was on the menu at KFC. It definitely didn’t sound like the most nutritious meal but nutritious not necessarily what I expect from a fried chicken fast food restaurant.
After listening to my friend go on and on about how horrible this was and how the executives at KFC are cold-hearted people who should be jailed for serving this so-called food, I decided to do my own investigating.
I went to the KFC website and there it was – the new Double Down Sandwich. The website boasts that this one of a kind sandwich is ‘so meaty that there is no room for a bun’. Per the website, the ‘sandwich’ has 540 calories and 32 grams of fat. Although, there are a few items on the menu that have more calories than the double down, at 10 grams of saturated fat, it has one of the highest amounts of saturated fat on the menu. (Higher amounts of saturated fat are directly linked to heart disease).
It’s important to note that a number of articles and blogs about the double down, dispute KFC’s claim that there are only 540 calories in the ‘sandwich’. Several ‘independent’ labs report that the sandwich contains 1,000-1,200 calories. Even if we use the nutritional information provided by KFC, if you eat this sandwich, you will have consumed a full day’s worth of total recommended intake of fat. Not to mention that the amount of meat in the sandwich equals approximately 4 servings of protein (more than a day’s worth) and I couldn’t find any vegetables in the sandwich. If you add the side of potato wedges that is advertised in the combo, you get another 260 calories, 13 grams of fat and 2.5 grams of saturated fat.
I couldn’t believe it. For once, I actually agreed with Beth. Sadly, if we dissected the menus of many other restaurants I’m sure we would find similar menu items with little nutritional value. Of course, we can only provide the information and people have to decide for themselves. Is this food so good that it’s really ‘to die for?’