Colonel Sanders Has To Be Smiling...

...at all the FREE publicity.

Chris Selley: You can do worse than a Double Down for lunch


I am truly amazed at the amount of ink spilled and the number of vocal chords vibrated over KFC’s Double Down — the definition-stretching “sandwich” in which bacon, cheese and sauce of some description bubble and ooze between two pieces of fried chicken. It’s as if Canadian society has completely lost the ability to think logically about food.

Yes, it’s unhealthy: 540 calories, 30 grams of fat, 150 milligrams of cholesterol and — most famously — 1,740 milligrams of salt. That’s more sodium than Health Canada wants you to consume in a day, contained in just a quarter of the recommended average adult’s daily caloric intake. But as many news items have pointed out, aside from the heroic salt count, the Double Down is hardly a game-changer in the fast food industry. The Big Mac has the same basic stats (though considerably less cholesterol). A Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese has 40% more calories and 50% more fat. Wendy’s triple Baconator, with which we all seem to have come to terms, has two and a half times the calories (1,370), triple the fat (92 grams!), double the cholesterol (295 milligrams) and 35% more salt (2,380 milligrams).

The Double Down isn’t even the most unhealthy thing on a KFC menu. That honour goes to something called the “Boxmaster,” which is deep fried chicken, a hash brown, cheese and sauce, wrapped in a tortilla and shoved into a box for some reason. (Did they come up with the name first?) It’s got more than half again as many calories and fat, and astonishingly enough, 10% more salt. Read More »