The newest culinary celebrity to hit the red carpet is a cute little sandwich called the Double Down, courtesy of KFC. A fast-food chicken lover’s dream and a health foodie’s nightmare, (DIR actually called it “frightening”), the Double Down is cheese, sauce, and bacon between two pieces of chicken, either fried or grilled.
The Original Recipe (read: fried) Double Down has 540 calories, 10 grams of saturated fat, 1,380 mg of sodium, and one gram of fiber. The grilled Double Down (for the health conscious, of course) is 460 calories, nine grams of saturated fat, 1,430 mg of sodium, and zero grams of fiber.
Not sure what those numbers mean? Well… its over a half day’s worth of salt in a palm-sized sandwich (if we can call it that, considering the lack of a bun).
A blogger has recently disputed the above info, calling “bulls***” on KFC, claiming the fast food chain is not being truthful about the (ahem) nutrition facts. They came up with their own calorie counts, which pins the grub at upwards of 1,000 calories!
I actually have to respectfully disagree with that blog critic, however. This “double down” is pretty small and I bet that the blogger overestimated its portion size. The only way to really test if KFC is being truthful would be to burn it up in an incinerator and measure the kilojoules of energy burned. Not very practical. I guess you could also buy a sandwich, weigh and measure the ingredients and look up the info in a database, but that’s a lot of work!
Some eateries have, in fact, been off with their calorie counts. The sad truth is restaurants don’t have to be accurate with their nutrition facts, unlike food you buy off the shelf. But if you take a look at a video of the Double Down, you’ll see that the pieces of meat are barely larger than your hand.
So big deal, a fried chicken, bacon, and cheese sandwich may have errors in their nutrition info. Would you really think you are eating healthy if that palm-sized fast food sandwich took up a half day’s worth of saturated fat and sodium?
If your goal is to eat healthy, then this sandwich, regardless of any potential for errors, is not exactly the way to go about it. Not a health food. There is a serious lack of veggies, no carbs, and no fiber.
But far be it for me to tell you what you should put into your body. If you have a burning desire to try it, split it with a friend and pair it with a salad. You’ll get to taste a “double down” without doubling over.