Stop squealing

KFC’s rabidly anticipated Double Down sandwich is the “Snakes on a Plane” of the fast food world. Garnering massive hype prior to its release, this contentious little treat is pissing off health nuts and arousing greasy-fingered gluttons. But is the Double Down worth getting this hot and bothered about?

At first glance, the sandwich may seem prurient in its excessiveness. It boasts two chicken fillets, either fried or grilled, two pieces of bacon, two slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and, of course, the Colonel’s Sauce.

It’s the chicken’s coup d’etat over the bread causing the stir. We look at a sandwich and expect to see the chicken comfortably nestled between a sesame seed bun or a French baguette, not arrogantly playing both the part of the filling and its floury reinforcement.

And thus, we assume that because there seems to be a surplus of chicken, the sandwich must be an artery-clogging abomination.

The reality is that the Double Down is similar to many other chicken sandwiches you might find at fast food establishments, except it has no bread.

With Original Recipe chicken, the sandwich has 540 calories and 1360 milligrams of sodium, and with grilled chicken, it has 460 calories and 1430 milligrams of sodium. Compare that to something like a Burger King Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich, which has 800 calories and 1640 milligrams of sodium, and you can see the Double Down is hardly radical.

I am not arguing that the Double Down isn’t unhealthy, but it certainly isn’t the unholy monstrosity some claim it to be. Columnist Mark Morford accuses the Double Down of being a “truly disgusting creation” with “the mutated, chemically injected flesh/byproducts” of three “different distended, liquefied, industrially tortured creatures.”

Calm down, Mark. Sure, the treatment of the animals that wind up in your to-go bag is most likely appalling, but it isn’t as if there is a designated “Double Down slaughter house,” which implements torturous slayings absent from all other animal slaughterhouses. I’m sure the poor pigs used in McDonald’s Bacon Cheeseburger aren’t loaded with morphine and then read their Last Rites by a priest before they die.

If you have a problem with the mistreated animals in your Double Down, you also need to have a problem with the mistreated animals present in every other fast food item out there.

And all this “disgusting creation” is is a double-stacked chicken sandwich plus bacon and minus bread. And before you complain about KFC’s food, try going to Taco Bell. Actually, don’t try it. I couldn’t live with myself.

In fact, I’m a bit disappointed in KFC. For all the publicity the company is gathering because of its new prized product, I expected something much more extravagant.

Give us three mondo burger patties topped with mozzarella sticks and doused in ketchup, mayonnaise, Thousand Island dressing and a pound of aged Wisconsin cheddar — then throw that mess onto a supreme pizza, roll it up into a burrito and bake it into a meat pie. Call it the “Apocalypse Cow” and sell it for $3.99. Now that might be something worthy of attention — and applause.


E-mail: joskraus@indiana.edu