The Crack House on the Corner

Once we're hooked we come here looking for another fix.

Last summer there was an over-blown kerfuffle in the North American media over KFC's introduction of the Double Down sandwich (no buns, just chicken, bacon, etc) that the chain boasted had 610 calories and enough salt to do you for a day or two. The attention this sandwich got bothered me because the media was ignoring the larger picture: the fact that this item was hardly the worst thing on fast food menus.

Again this spring there was a flurry of media reports on the return of the KFC Double Down. This time it has a little less sodium. But since last summer's introduction of this obscene concoction, McDonald's has changed it's menu with marquee items that put the Double Down to shame.

McDonald's quietly changed their Angus burger from one version to three more nutritionally disastrous versions, two of which clock in at a startling 780 calories with up to 47 grams of fat. A Big Mac only has a 540 calories and 29 grams of fat. Many people assume Angus beef is healthier because it's more lean. That's not the case here.

McDonald's new Angus burgers

Big Macs used to be what we compared all unhealthy food to ("Don't eat movie popcorn, it's got X number of Big Macs in it!") But every new major fast food item these days seems to be worse than anything that came before it. So much for fast food chains responding to the obesity epidemic. (There's a myth, by the way, that McDonald's and other restaurants got rid of the "super-size" option. This is not the case!)

Where I live, breakfast biscuits are a new option for McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, introduced just a few months ago. Biscuits sounded harmless to me at first but I discovered that they are not. A bacon and egg sandwich on a biscuit instead of an English muffin adds 140 calories and almost twice the fat!

Before that McDonald's introduced the McGriddle which also had many more calories than their original English muffin breakfast sandwiches. It was all over the financial sections of newspapers that this product was a great success to the corporation's bottom line.

Fat sells. And they know it.

I keep coming across a business-related documentary on the history of McDonald's, airing on a cable news channel. In it we see the modern McDonald's headquarters where they've hired the top chefs available out of chef schools. They come up with all kinds of new things from gourmet salads to lobster and they spend a lot of time getting feedback from paid taste testers.

I laugh when I see these elite chefs talk about exciting and nutritious potential new products. The fact is they could offer good food but the corporation knows it's the high fat, high calorie food that sells best. Not only is that the preferred food in their restaurants, but more importantly, it's the food that gets people hooked on the physiological rewards that such food gives us. It keeps people coming back for more. And more...

McDonald's and other fast food restaurants are legalized crack houses catering to our fat addictions. Addictions created by the food they knowingly devise with that end in mind.

The first one is always free.