However, in an effort to woo back customers who have denied the fried for health reasons, the fast food fried chicken joint will start adding grilled chicken to their stores. The chicken will be called Kentucky Grilled Chicken (so it is KGC), but the company will continue to serve its namesake, fried chicken. The new grilled chicken has been and is currently being tested in Indianapolis, Colorado Springs, San Diego, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, Fla., and Austin, Texas, with plans for the full national rollout in early January 2009.
Folks at Kentucky's Cave Hill Cemetery have a bone to pick with PETA over a tombstone that the animal rights group recently placed near the KFC founder Col. Harland Sanders' grave to mark the anniversary of his death.
At first blush the marker seems to contain little more than a loving poem addressed to "Kind Friend of Chickens." As you can see from the above photo it actually contains an acrostic that reads "KFC TORTURES BIRDS." Officials at the Louisville cemetery say they were tricked and want the headstone removed. "We do not believe in being part of any political message at all," said Mac Barr, board chairman of Cave Hill Cemetery. "We believe that this is directed at Col. Sanders and KFC, and again, if we had known this in advance we would not have permitted this." Well, by gum I l think you might be on to something there Mac.
The plot was purchased by Matt Prescott, the brains behind the group's Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, which takes aim at KFC because its "suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can't even walk, and often break their wings and legs." Even if such horrific claims are true PETA's taking its campaign to the boneyard is particularly dastardly. [via Neatorama]
I'm really not sure what to say about this particular food holiday. I mean, in America, isn't every day National Fast Food Day?
So...how to celebrate this holiday? I can't really link to any recipes, but maybe you can go to McDonald's or Burger King for lunch? Or if you'd like to take the opposite route, maybe rent Morgan Spurlock's SuperSize Me.
I have to admit that the other night, after getting out of a Police concert and finding the only thing open nearby was a McDonald's, I bought two large fries and two small Diet Cokes. And at 11:15 at night, after I hadn't eaten a thing all day, I can honestly say it was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life.
Of course, a lot of people would say "just avoid fast food altogether!" But sometimes you just need a Wendy's double cheeseburger and fries.
The folks over at A Calorie Counter have looked at the nutritional info for all of the fast food outlets (McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, A&W, Arby's, Hardee's, In-N-Out Burger, Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Sonic, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's, White Castle, Popeyes, Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and Dairy Queen) and have compiled a list of the 88 worst foods you can buy, in terms of the amount of trans fats. After the jump, the 10 worst. The link above gives you the whole list.
This is thinking a little too much outside the bun.
A Nebraska family is suing the owners of the Mid Plains Food and Lodging KFC/Taco Bell franchise after an employee allegedly spit and urinated in their food.
Not only does the suit claim that employees did that nastiness, but it also says that there was actually a separate pan in the kitchen set aside for police officers (the father of the family is a cop) that employees would use for, ahem, "special servings" of food. The family says one of the children got very ill and had to go to the ER and that another child got sick too. Yikes.
The suit also says that management was aware of what happened before and after the incident and that they let the employee keep his job anyway. That employee has already plead guilty in an earlier lawsuit.
I was really planning to try that KFC Famous Bowl, but not after seeing these pics.
It's a funny experiment from The West Virginia Surf Report. They take several ads from fast food companies such as McDonald's, KFC, Arby's, Subway, Burger King, and Wendy's and compare the pics to the actual food they went and bought. The results are, while not exactly surprising, certainly interesting.
Most of the foods look really smushed and look like they were put together very quickly. But back to that KFC Famous Bowl. In the ad you can see all the individual items in there, the chicken, the cheese, the corn, the gravy. The actual product (above) looks like dog food sold on the planet Krypton. Gah!
The playful antics of the rats at a Taco Bell-KFC restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village have probably seen more ink than Taco Bell's recent E. coli outbreak. Their performance has certainly garnered tons of local TV news coverage and as of this writing has more than 800 hits on YouTube.
The good folks over at The Scoop over on the NRN Foodservice Blog reported on the story behind the story the other day via an exclusive interview with the leader of the Taco Bell rats. And quite a scoop it was. They managed to catch the leader before his appearance on Conan later that night. Among the revelations from the interview is the fact that the rats' celebrity like that of most stars was no easy task. They'd been practicing their dance moves for more than two months starting with when they were discovered by the city's Health Department in December.
Asone might imagine, the leader describes living in the restaurant as a paradise chock-full of tacos and fried chicken. And he offers up a theory as to why the Health Department allowed the fast-food joint to continue to operate even though a troupe of performing rats had set up shop. They're just too busy with important matters like protecting the public from the trans-fat menace. Never let it be said that New York City doesn't support the arts.
Yum Brands, the company that owns the KFC/Taco Bell that was in the news recently because it was overrun by rats, has decided to close several more NYC restaurants owned by the company.
There's no word on exactly how many of the restaurants in the area are going to close, but the company said in a statement that they "will not compromise on our food and restaurant quality." The eateries are going to remain closed until they get the OK to reopen from city health inspectors.
Check out the rat slide show if you've forgotten what the whole nasty scene looked like.
I don't honestly think that the KFC Famous Bowl looks appetizing. It is a bowl containing layers of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, fried chicken pieces and shredded cheese. The idea is that, unlike most fast food meals, it actually has the same components as a real homestyle dinner. Why you would want to have all those things mushed together is clearly a matter of personal taste, but it is safe to say that you are much better off combining your own homemade ingredients than buying KFC's concoction, even if the fast food chain is eliminating trans fats from their recipes. Homemade will taste better and will probably be less fattening. A regular Famous Bowl has 720 calories and 34 grams of fat. The nutritional content of a homemade one will depend on your personal recipes for each of the components, but if you want to go really low-fat, you can always try Hungry Girl's KFC-Ya Later Bowl. At 285 calories and 6.5g of fat, her madeover bowl has less than half the salt and almost half the carbs of the original.
Until a fast-food restaurant places ads on the moon, the publicity stunt that KFC used to unveil its new logo earlier this week gets my vote for most bizarre. The chicken purveyor placed a gargantuan logo in the Nevada desert, making it the first brand visible from outer space. The outsized ad measures 87,000 square feet, a whopping six-and-a-half times bigger than the dome of the Taj Mahal.
The new logo is part of a rebranding effort that includes using the name Kentucky Fried Chicken along with reintroducing the slogans "Finger Lickin' Good" and "11 Secret Herbs and Spices." Forgive me while I indulge in some greasy childhood nostalgia as I ponder those slogans. The new logo sports bolder colors and a more defined graphic of the chain's late founder Colonel Harland Sanders. In addition to the crisper likeness, the good colonel has shed his white suit in favor of a red apron.
It's great that KFC is getting back to its roots and letting folks know that the colonel was a real person, but did they really need to build what amounts to a corporate version of the eighth wonder of the world? Gregg Dedrick, president of KFC Corp. had this to say: "If there are extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants to become their restaurant of choice. For now, we'll be very content satisfying the entire human population ... Besides, who knows if extraterrestrials even have fingers?" Umm, OK then.
KFC announced yesterday that they intended to begin eliminating trans-fats from their recipes, starting with their famous fried chicken. Over the course of the next 6-8 months, by April of 2007, all KFC stores will switch to using a non-hydrogenated cooking oil, although some locations already use it. If this seems like a minor change, consider that one extra-crispy chicken breast (is there any other kind worth going to KFC for?) has 4.5 grams of trans fat!
The process of testing the recipes has taken the company about two years. Even though the partially hydrogenated oil that they currently use does not really contribute to the product in terms of flavor, it does produce a superior crispness that lasts longer than some other oils. The company did not want to put out a product that would not live up to their consumers' expectations - even if it was healthier. They will be using low linolenic soybean oil. Other fast food companies, including Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which are also owned by KFC's parent company, Yum Brands Inc., say that they are looking into replacing partially hydrogenated oils on their menus, as well.
KFC fans should take note that there will still be a few things on the menu that will not be trans-fat free, namely their biscuits, macaroni and cheese and baked goods.
While perhaps a few months late, the LA Times' auto columnist Dan Neil recently offered his thoughts on KFC's Famous Bowl-the all-in-one combination of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, fried chicken pieces and shredded cheese. Neil bravely digs into the "steaming, sweating pound of food goo" to find that it's "like throwing up in reverse." He's certainly taken one for the team here. The Bowl then serves as a jumping off point for Neil to ponder the American fast food industry and, after considering things like the Carl's Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger and the "Luther Burger," Neil decides that KFC's offering is comparitively tame. Even the styled ad photos for the Famous Bowls look gross. I can only imagine what a lovingly prepared speciment coming from the drivethrough looks like.
Remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken officially changed its name to KFC, in an effort to make an older brand seem hipper and to eliminate the word "fried" from its name? Well, the company is looking to change its image a little more. The iconic Colonel Sanders is getting a makeover. KFC has trademarked a new rendition of the Colonel. He is a bit less detailed than previous incarnations, with fewer lines in his hair and skin, as well as getting outfitted with a bright red apron.
I like the look, which is the bottom right in the image here, well enough, but prefer the older versions simply because the Colonel looked more like a real character, a version of the real life man he was based on, and less like a fictional fast-food employee, which is the sense that the new image seems to give. It's not a major change, but it's a noticeable one.
Do you prefer the older look or the newer one? You can vote for your favorite version of the Colonel here.
KFC has come under fire from a retired Maryland doctor and, for a second time, the Center for Science in the Public Interest for their continued use of partially hydrogenated oil, the Associated Press reported. Aside from financial compensation, the two are asking that a judge require KFC to either stop using the high-fat oils or require employees to inform customers of trans fats prior to ordering. Class action status is also being sought for anyone that has eaten at a certain Washington, D.C. KFC in 2004-2005.
Now, I suppose you can argue that fast food chains should take steps to make their products healthier, but this is fried chicken. Next to maybe a chili dog or a Krispy Kreme donut, I don't think anything says "I"m throwing nutritional caution to the wind right now" like a piece of fried chicken, let alone a bucket of it.
A KFC spokesperson told the AP that KFC will fight the suit in court, adding that the chain has made their nutrition information available in stores and online "for a very long time."
It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!
Well, not really. 
Folks at Kentucky's Cave Hill Cemetery have a bone to pick with 
I'm really not sure what to say about this particular food holiday. I mean, in America, isn't every day National Fast Food Day?
Of course, a lot of people would say "just avoid fast food altogether!" But sometimes you just need a Wendy's double cheeseburger and fries.
This is thinking a little too much outside the bun.
I was really planning to try that KFC Famous Bowl, but not after seeing these pics.
The playful antics of the rats at a Taco Bell-KFC restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village have probably seen more ink than Taco Bell's recent 
Yum Brands, the company that owns the KFC/Taco Bell that was in the news recently because it was overrun by rats, has 
Until a fast-food restaurant places ads on the moon, the publicity stunt that 
KFC
While perhaps a few months late, the LA Times' auto columnist Dan Neil recently offered his 
Remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken officially changed its name to 
KFC has come under fire from a retired Maryland doctor and, for a second time, the Center for Science in the Public Interest for their continued use of partially hydrogenated oil, the 
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