Double Down!

KFC today releases the Double Down Sandwich. Two pieces of fried chicken as the bread, with bacon, cheese, and other goodies in between. Sounds delicious to me.

People are wondering why these over-the-top sandwiches like this one and the Hardees Monster Thickburger get so much attention and admiration, and vile attacks. I think Salon pretty much said it best:

The balls of a fast food chain, in the middle of rational America’s hand-wringing about obesity and sustainable eating, to come out with a sandwich made of bacon, cheese, mayo-ish sauce and two slabs of fried chicken as the bread. The balls of KFC, which, in the weak-willed ’90s, changed its brand from Kentucky Fried Chicken to its lame initials because it didn’t want you to have to say the word “fried” every time you spoke its name. The Double-D is so macho, so deeply, dumbly dude, it’s a sandwich for people who want to take down Michelle Obama in an arm wrestle.

I recall a story, the source of which escapes me at the moment. Short version, though, is that during Prohibition times, a Senator would gather his staff in his office, open a bottle of bootleg whiskey, pour everyone a drink, and they would raise their glasses in “A shot for freedom.” Kansas City Republican Woody Cozad once cited this story as his basis for continuing to smoke the occasional cigar, claiming he was “striking a match for freedom.”

In this day and age of the health-food crazed people trying to dictate to us what we should or should not eat, up to and including the provisions in the Health Control Law that require any restaurant with more than twenty locations to provide accurate and obviously noted calorie counts on their menus, people are fed up.

The Hardees Monster Thickburger debuted to sound ridicule from the Nutrition Nazis. However, it is still on the menu. At over 1300 calories, obviously people are buying it or they would not continue to offer it. I suspect the same thing will occur with the KFC Double Down.

I also suspect the constant running joke of bacon that runs the internet finds its roots in the same nanny-state attempt at control. Now personally, I love bacon, and for what it’s worth I like mine a little bit on the undone side, before it gets crispy and salty-tasting. Do I understand it’s not good for me? Of course I do. If I could get away with it, would I eat bacon three meals a day? Abso-friggin’-lutely! I speak as one who after a few icy-colds one summer night decided to try to cook bacon on his gas grill (and just to let everyone know, it turned out good, and at no point was the fire department involved). Do I know it’s not the best thing for me to eat as often as possible? Grudgingly, I have to say yes.

I grew up eating a lot of fried foods. In fact, so much fried chicken that these days I tend to shy away from it. We grew chickens, I killed them, plucked them, and cut them up, and then would eat them about once or twice a week. I like it, but today won’t go out of my way to have it.

The point is that people will eat healthy or they will not. And the sooner the Bloombergs and Michelle Obama’s of the world realize that, they will stop trying to chide and control over the things that we like. I think on the whole, people tend to have a built-in system that gives you cravings for whatever you need. The trick is to listen to that craving, and understand it. If, for example, you start to crave green beans, then there is likely something in green beans that your body is short on. If you crave ice-cream, well, maybe you just have a sweet tooth. Like I said, you have to understand it.

Perhaps education instead of criticism would be in order.