Ad Watch - KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal
A friend told me about a show he watched last night called Half Ton Dad. It is a documentary about a man named Kenneth Brumley and the lengths he went to in order to lose weight and regain his life. I haven’t seen the show (no cable) but apparently after undergoing surgery to remove over 200 pounds of fatty tumors and then gastric bypass surgery, he is now down to a little over 500 pounds and can stand on his own for a few minutes at a time. That’s fantastic and I wish him the best.
So how did he get so large? By eating too much, of course. His case is obviously extreme, but just to give you an idea, he ate 30,000 calories per day. According to the McDonalds nutrition chart, and with a quick note that I’m not picking on McDonalds but am just using them as a familiar reference, a Big Mac, large fries and large regular Coke is about 1,350 calories and 54 grams of fat. He was eating the equivalent of a little over twenty-two of those meals per day, on average.
Seriously, sit back and ponder that for a moment. 22 Big Macs, 22 large fries, and 22 32-ounce sodas per day. It’s mind boggling.
What’s even more mind boggling is how much money it must cost to feed someone 30,000 calories per day, and why the people around him continued to kill him by bring him this much food. Not to sound cold here, but he couldn’t walk so his food intake was dictated by what others would bring to him. It’s not like he could get up and get his own burger if his family chose to only bring him salad …
… but I digress.
Back to the topic at hand, there is a KFC commercial currently in rotation that mocks anyone who would get a puny little burger and fries combo because their new box combo, branded by Guitar Hero, is bigger and manlier.
From the a friendly blogger in Michigan (I’ll include his video at the bottom of this post - thank goodness he went and bought it because I never will!), here’s what you get in your Guitar Hero fully loaded box meal, which will run you about $8:
- 1 Snacker (mini sandwich)
- 1 piece chicken (leg or thigh, Original Recipe or Extra Crispy)
- 2 Crispy Strips
- 2 sides
- 1 biscuit
- 32-ounce drink in flimsy “collector” cup
Alrighty.
According to his site, this meal has about 1,200 calories, which actually makes it a more slenderizing choice than a Big Mac, large fries and a Coke. There are, however, quite a variety of choices to be made with this meal. The only fairly consistent calorie numbers come with the Snacker sandwich, Crispy Strips and biscuit. If I put together a meal with a Snacker, 1 Extra Crispy thigh, 2 Crispy Strips, Baked Beans, Coleslaw, 1 biscuit and a 32 ounce regular Pepsi, I can easily plump that calorie count up to about 1,800 calories and 73 grams of fat.
Since this meal is aimed at young males, I found a calculator that would calculate the average calorie needs of a 6′0″ tall, 200 pound, lightly active 20 year old male. The calculator popped out that to maintain that weight, my fictional young man would need about 2,800 calories per day, including 95 grams of fat. One of these meals would provide about 65% of caloric needs for the day, and 77% of his fat. In other words, he’s theoretically OK if he eats this meal every day, depending on how the rest of his daily calorie and fat content plays out.
Of course, weight and nutrition is not all about calories and fat content. Besides the cabbage in the slaw I chose for him and a piece of token lettuce on the Snacker sandwich, there’s no vegetables in this meal, and no fruit at all. I can’t imagine he would be getting a decent amount of vitamins and minerals either, and just looking at the foods in that list makes me tired - eating all of it at one sitting would probably require a nap afterwards, don’t you think?
So, while I wouldn’t personally choose to pay $8 for this meal, it’s certainly not a killer as an occasional expenditure. If you want to splurge and KFC is your thing, I guess this is a great way to get a wide variety of treats in one box - just don’t make it a daily habit.
KFC Guitar Hero Fully Loaded Box Meal unboxed from Tim Agne on Vimeo
