The chemistry whizkids at what used to be called Kentucky Fried Chicken before 'fried' became a word with negative connotations have come up with what they believe may be the year's big fast food burger seller - and it doesn't include bread. Behold, the Double Down.
The creation features a dollop of the Colonel's secret sauce wrapped in a slice of both Pepperjack Cheese and Swiss Cheese, between two slices of bacon and two filets of KFC original recipe chicken that serve as the 'bread' of the burger.
That's right - instead of bread, you get breaded chicken. Multiplied by two.
The Double Down is generally considered to be a big success thus far in the areas it has been tested, with management at a KFC outlet in Omaha Nebraska telling Australian reporters that the 'sandwich' had exceeded expectations.
The Double Down sells for $6.99 and a TV commercial promoting it in the American midwest says it has "so much 100 percent premium chicken, we didn't have room for a bun." The commercial comes as part of the "Rethink KFC" campaign that has, to date, been focused on rebranding the company with healthy products.
KFC doesn't offer official nutritional information on their website to tell potential Double Downers what they might be doing to their internal system, so we here at The Vancouver Sun have taken out our chemistry set and rebuilt the Double Down in our underground lab with a view to figuring out how it works.
The results show this one menu item can be estimated to supply more than the daily recommended allowance in fat (124%), saturated fat (117%), cholesterol (105%), sodium (125%) and protein (194%), as well as 61% of your daily recommended calorie intake.
The figures below are only an estimate based on nutritional information listed for individual ingredients on the KFC website, as well as ingredients that closely resemble others not listed, and data provided by nutritional watchdog groups based on generic brands, so should be taken (if you'll excuse the pun) with a grain of salt.
But if our figures hold true, and KFC won't confirm they don't, the Double Down is more caloriffic than the Wendy's Triple with Everything and Cheese (1700 mg sodium, 960 calories, 26 gms of fat), the Burger King Stacker Quad (1770 sodium, 1020 calories, 69 gms of fat), and compares closely to the fat, salt and calorie totals of three McDonalds Big Macs put together (3060 sodium, 1620 calories, 87 gms fat). source
