America's favorite fast food chains

Sorry McDonald's, you don't make the cut
Piper Weiss, Shine Staff
Thu Jun 30, 2011
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/americas-favorite-fast-food-chains-sorry-mcdonalds-you-dont-make-the-cut-2504452

For the best restaurants in the country ask a Michelin guide reviewer. For the best fast food joints, ask everyone else. That's what Consumer Reports did in their new survey out today. They polled 36,733 subscribers to their magazine on their favorite go-to chains for instant gratification.

Based on over 98,000 visits to 53 chains, readers judged the service, speed, cost and overall deliciousness of their quick dining experience. The big surprise: the highest rated fast food didn't come from the biggest chains. McDonald's, Taco Bell, and KFC, also took a backseat to the slightly smaller franchises. Here are readers' picks for the best fast food experience.

Burgers: In-N-Out burger. The West Coast chain beat out Burger King, McDonald's, and countless other burger-flipping joints to rate highest in taste, speed and service. Their freshly prepared, preservative-free patties were a shoe-in for flavor, and also earned high marks for value. Who needs super-sizing when you've got a super-secret menu?

Mexican: Chiptole Mexican Grill. With only 8 chains in this category, the competition is slim, but readers gave this tacos-and-guac haven the highest marks not only for flavor but for speed and service.

Chicken: Chick-fil-A. The fried chicken trays and sandwiches at this nationwide chain beat out KFC's buckets by a long shot.

Sandwiches and Subs: Jason's Deli. The little guy stepped out of the shadows of Quiznos and Subway, as a top pick. It's massive menu options (subs, muffalettas, wraps and even pasta) and "grab-and-go" meals, garnered big-time service and speed points.

Pizza: Papa Murphy's Take N' Bake Pizza. Don't bother making the pizza, we can do it ourselves. That's the message with this surprising fan favorite, a pizza chain that sells prepped, uncooked pizzas that you heat up at home.

Best overall value: Papa Murphy's, CiCi Pizza and In-N-Out Burger. Readers picked these three chains medium-sized chains as the best bang for your buck.

Not everyone was so positive about the fast food experience. Readers rated Round Table Pizza, KFC and the struggling Italian chain, Sbarro's, as offering the least value. And casual dining restaurants like Cracker Barrel and Outback Steakhouse pleased patrons far in terms of experience than the standard to-go chains. Not surprisingly, only 13 percent of those surveyed considered the last meal they ate at a fast food restaurant "healthful." Despite a growing number of lower-fat menu options one thing is clear: they don't turn to the drive-through for diet tips.

China Hearts Colonel Sanders

Yum! Brands (owners of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) is the most American of korporate food giants this side of a Big Mac. Which makes it interesting that Yum! now makes more dollars in China than the USA.

The spread in quarter three last year: 41.5 percent of Yum! sales came in the Asian giant versus 33.9 from the United States, and the spread in profits was greater, 46.3 vs. 29.1 percent.

The money in China is overwhelmingly KFC: of the 3,664 restaurants they own in the country, 83 percent are the Sanders brand. The rest are Pizza Huts, as Taco Bell was a flop that left the nation in 2008. But perhaps the chicken craze will lead to a reintroduction of Mexican food in China by combining the brands. Mexican food, like pizza, is not a hard sell when given the chance...

Colonel Sanders: China's favorite import
Paul R. La Monica
January 19, 2011
http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/19/news/companies/thebuzz/index.htm

The fast-food giant eating up the world

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-fastfood-giant-eating-up-the-world-2025955.html

The fast-food giant eating up the world
Thanks to its success in China, Yum!, the owner of KFC, is bigger than McDonald's – and it's still growing.
Stephen Foley
Wednesday, 14 July 2010

The Colonel's army is on the march. Vast swathes of China have fallen under his dominion, and he is making inroads in India and Russia. It is one of the great American conquests of our time: the Kentucky Fried Chickenification of the middle classes in the world's emerging economies. And it all means that KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut and the Mexican food outlet Taco Bell, has earned the exclamation mark on which it insists.

With 37,000 restaurants in 110 countries, Yum! even eclipses that more famous icon of American colonisation, McDonald's, to rank as the world's largest restaurant chain in terms of numbers of outlets. For Yum! the task is to forge onward in this virgin territory, but also to shore up its gains against the hungry McDonald's and other fast-food giants, all the while trying to keep the home fires burning back in the US, where sales are challenging because consumers are watching their wallets and their waistlines. The 23 years since Yum! opened its first KFC in China near Beijing's Tiananmen Square provide a masterclass in overseas expansion. Its success to date has tempted a hundred imitations and whose progress in the future will be one of the most closely watched stories in corporate America.

"Yum!'s is an amazing story about how they conquered China so much earlier than their main rivals," says RJ Hottovy, an analyst at Morningstar. "Part of the reason is that they built up their supply chain and their distribution system quickly, and that is giving them a real competitive advantage. When you are setting up restaurants in new territories it is often difficult to procure packaging and to develop good relationships with suppliers, but Yum! now has a nice little edge."

China has become so important to Yum! that it now splits its sales there into a separate division ranking equal to its US market. Last year, 33 per cent of its operating profits came from China, nudging the 38 per cent from the US, and it sees much greater potential still. Adding in Pizza Hut, which is pitched as a mid-market family dining experience in China, there will be 475 new Yum! outlets in there this year, on top of the record 509 added last year.

There are almost three times as many KFCs now in mainland China than there are McDonald's restaurants, which opened its doors there just three years later, in 1990. Mr Hottovy says competition is hotting up, however. "At the time that Yum! was accelerating in China, McDonald's was working on a turnaround in the US, but since that has been completed, it has turned its attention to international expansion in a big way and is planning to double its presence in China, so the competition for Yum is going to be increasing," he said.

"McDonald's, with its well-known brand, its advertising and its scale, will be a major player. But there is room for both. This is all about the rise of the middle-income consumer in China that is fuelling the growth, the story that we hear so much about."

All of the Yum! brands are storied American companies. KFC was founded by Harland Sanders in 1952, when he was already an established Kentucky businessman and had earned the title "Kentucky Colonel" for his services to the state. Pizza Hut traces its history back almost as far, and the younger Taco Bell, whose growth has mirrored the growth of the Mexican community and the popularity of its cuisine, was founded in 1962. The three chains were pulled together by Pepsi, the drinks-maker, which ran a restaurant division until 1997, when it decided to spin off the lot.

The growth trajectory in China has not been without its setbacks, including a dip in sales at existing restaurants there in 2005, but David Novak, the former Pepsi executive who has been Yum! chief executive since 2000, boasts that the company's infrastructure in China will not only carry it through but allow it to best its rivals. "China is predicted to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world," he said in the company's latest annual report. "In fact, it is expected to grow its middle class from around 300 million today to 500 million people in 2020. Like I've said in the past, we will no doubt have some bumpy years, but I wouldn't trade our long-term position in China with any consumer company in the world."

It is worth remembering that what Yum! is doing has never been done before. Who really knows what the Chinese appetite for Western-style fast food really will turn out to be? Both KFC and Pizza Hut have adapted their menus to local tastes, and their advertising, too. But, continuing with its second-quarter results last night, the focus is shifting to other expansion opportunities in China and beyond. The company is trialling a new Chinese food chain, called East Dawning, so that it can use its formidable distribution infrastructure for a more diverse range of brands and cuisines – just in case.

And then there are the other emerging markets. Yum has more than 70 KFCs in India, as well as 160 Pizza Huts, and it just opened its first Taco Bell in the country in March. It promises to hit 1,000 outlets in total by 2015, employing 50,000 people and raking in $100m in operating profit. Meanwhile, Mr Novak is hoping to engineer a dramatic expansion of Taco Bell, too. "Two global brands – and one on the way," he is fond of saying.

Taco Bell, with its menu of Mexican staples, from burritos and nachos to tacos, brought in just 3 per cent of its sales from outside the US in 2008, but that low figure was not for want of trying. The chain has attempted launches across the world on several occasions since the Eighties, but never gained popular acceptance. It is only now sticking a toe back into the European market, with a return to the UK via a first outlet in the Lakeside shopping centre, which opened two weeks ago.

In the US, the focus is on sprucing up the menus across the Yum! outlets, and that means making them healthier. At KFC, less chicken is being fried (hence a preference for using the initials) and more is being grilled. At Pizza Hut, putting chicken wings on a wider menu has helped reverse a slide in revenues, while Taco Bell is pushing salads. More important perhaps to the company's financial health is a move to switch the US business from being owned and operated directly by Yum! from its headquarters at 1,900 Colonel Sanders Lane in Louisville, Kentucky, to being run by franchisees. The revenue from licence fees is lower, but at least it is stable and the margins are higher.

In short, the stagnation of its US business does not mean that an American corporation is doomed to stagnate itself, if it can seize opportunities around the world. Yum! is on course to boost earnings by 10 per cent this year, despite falling like-for-like sales in the US. It has peppered its missives to investors with fighting talk, promising to "dramatically improve" its US brands and "aggressive international expansion", with 1,400 new outlets in 2010. It doesn't plan to lose that exclamation mark, and wants to live up to its description of itself: "The defining global company that feeds the world."

Yum! Brands in numbers

509 new restaurants opened in China in 2009
2,950 branches of Kentucky Fried Chicken in China
1,100 branches of McDonald's in China
21 East Dawning Chinese food outlets
$19bn Yum! market capitalisation
440% share price rise since 2000
2% operating profit from China in 1998
33% operating profit from China in 2009
$9.4bn annual sales
1958 First branch of Pizza Hut opens in Kansas
1952 Colonel Harland D Sanders opens first KFC in Utah
11 herbs and spices in KFC's "finger-lickin' flavour"
1962 Glen Bell opens first branch of Taco Bell in California
1 number of Taco Bell stores in the UK
300 million pounds of cheese used by Pizza Hut each year

87,500 Size in square feet of the KFC "face from space" advertisement built in the Nevada desert and showing Colonel Sanders

The 4,301-calorie entree: America's worst meal?

http://theweek.com/article/index/202269/The_4301calorie_entree_Americas_worst_meal

The 4,301-calorie entree: America's worst meal?
At 540 calories, KFC's controversial Double Down sandwich is chicken feed compared to these 7 shamelessly unhealthy dishes
April 27, 2010

Beef back ribs: Worth two days' worth of calories?

America remains fascinated by the KFC Double Down, the enigmatic fast-food sensation that sandwiches cheese and bacon between fried chicken breasts.

Though the Double Down has a poor nutrition profile (at 540 calories, it contains 10g of unsaturated fat and 1380mg of salt), it actually compares very favorably to entrees from America's most popular chain restaurants. To put all this in perspective, the FDA recommends adults consume around 2,000 calories a day, including no more than 2,300 mg of salt and 20g of saturated fat.

Here's a list of some of America's biggest dietary challenges:

1. BEEF BACK RIBS, Claim Jumpers
Description: "Slow-roasted then flame-broiled and loaded with flavor — will satisfy your hearty appetite"
'Nutritional' data: 4,301 calories, which includes a whopping 156g of saturated fat and almost 4 times the FDA's recommended daily salt intake (7,623mg).
Equivalent to eating: Nearly 8 of KFC's Double Downs

2. FRESH MEX SAMPLER, Chevys
Description: "Our quest for the best is all about your enjoyment, one Fresh Mex bite at a time"
'Nutritional' data: When all Fresh Mex bites are tallied, a diner will have sampled 2,560 calories, 53g of saturated fat, and 4,130mg of salt.
Equivalent to eating: 4.75 Double Downs

3. JALAPENO SMOKEHOUSE BURGER w/ JALAPENO RANCH, Chili's
Description: "A crowd-pleasing favorite topped with apple-wood smoked bacon, cheddar, red onion and mayo"
'Nutritional' data: With 2,130 calories, 43g of saturated fat, and another wildly high sodium count (6,460mg), this burger might be better shared with a small crowd.
Equivalent to eating: 3.9 Double Downs

4. SMOKIN' Q THREE-PACK BURGER, Denny's
Description: "Mini BBQ cheeseburgers topped with onion crispers and bacon"
'Nutritional' data: This "mini" feast contains about the FDA's recommended daily calorie count in one 2,020 calorie entree, with 22g of saturated fat and 3,570mg of salt.
Equivalent to eating: 3.7 Double Downs

5. CRISPY ORANGE CHICKEN BOWL, Applebee's
Description: "A taste of the Orient—Applebee's style. Breaded chicken covered in a spicy-sweet orange glaze over our almond rice pilaf"
'Nutritional' data: The Orient, as interpreted by Applebee's, is extremely filling; this dish delivers 1,900 calories, 13g of fat, and twice as much salt (4,330mg) as you're supposed to eat all day.
Equivalent to eating: 3.5 Double Downs

6.DINNER-SIZED PARMESAN-CRUSTED SOLE, Romano's
Description: "Hand-breaded and sauteed then topped with lemon butter sauce and capers. Served with sun-dried tomato and spinach orzo pasta."
'Nutritional' data: No doubt that parmesan crust and buttery sauce contribute to a 1710-calorie count, along with 39g of saturated fat and 2,830mg of salt.
Equivalent to eating: 3.1 Double Downs

7. SUNRISE QUESADILLA, Ruby Tuesday's
Description: "Served with Hollandaise sauce, sour cream, and salsa"
'Nutritional' data: Why not ingest the bulk of your daily calorie allotment early, with this 1,589-calorie brunch special. It also contains 2,983mg of salt.
Equivalent to eating: 2.9 Double Downs

All of the nutritional information comes from restaurant menus. Amounts do not include sides/dressing unless stated.

Eat KFC & Save Boobs

Robert Sterling

Some people want to help find a cure for breast cancer. Other people just want to get really fat eating large amounts of fried food. KFC thought about this either/or duality, and asked: "Why choose?"

In the second coolest move they've done this month, Kentucky Fried Chicken has teamed with the Susan G. Komen Foundation to create Buckets for the Cure. (Sorry, but making a sandwich with fried chicken as the bread is still more awesome than battling breast cancer.) For each pink bucket of tasty fried chicken sold, KFC will donate fifty cents to the foundation, as part of a record single donation of $8.5 million. Doing the math, that's 17 million tubs of gooey bird meat.

Of course, already there are uptight do-gooders whining this exploits the scourge of breast cancer as a sleazy plug for unhealthy fast food. Oh yeah? Well, go back to your Tofu Hut and see how much money you raise, you women haters...

Sources:

Buckets for the Cure
http://www.bucketsforthecure.com/

"KFC wants you to help end breast cancer by buying a bucket of obesity-inducing, heart-attack crap food"
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/kfc-wants-you-to-help-end-breast-cancer-by-buying-a-bucket-of-obesity-inducing-heart-attack-crap-food-1285406/

"KFC's new sandwich replaces bun with... chicken"
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/09/kfcs_new_sandwich_replaces_bun_with_chicken/

KFC's new sandwich replaces bun with... chicken

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/09/kfcs_new_sandwich_replaces_bun_with_chicken/

KFC's new sandwich replaces bun with... chicken
Michael Hill
Associated Press Writer / April 9, 2010

The KFC Double Down, which launches Monday, is essentially a sandwich with two chicken filets taking the place of bread slices. In between are two pieces of bacon, melted slices of Monterey Jack and Pepper Jack cheese and a zesty sauce.

How much will it cost? About $5 and 540 calories (460 for the grilled version), putting it on caloric par with fast-food standards like the McDonald's Big Mac or a large order of french fries at Burger King.

But calories aren't everything. Nutritionists caution that consumers also should pay attention to the sandwich's salt and fat.

The Double Down has 1,380 milligrams of sodium (1,430 milligrams grilled). That's close to the American Heart Association's recommendation that adults eat less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day.

"This is not a healthy choice," said Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.

While Willett said eliminating the white bread is a good thing to do, "what really sets this product apart is the incredible amount of sodium in one sandwich."

Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said the 32 grams of fat is about half the total fat most Americans should be getting in an entire day. She also was concerned about the saturated fat content.

KFC's timing with the Double Down -- which will be available through mid-May -- may seem odd when many fast-food restaurants are promoting healthier menu items to please an increasingly health conscious public.

KFC's parent company, Yum Brands Inc., has committed to placing calorie counts on menu boards at corporate-owned restaurants nationwide by Jan. 1, 2011. A recently passed federal law eventually will require all chain restaurants to do so.

But the company said the chicken-as-bun concept tested so well in selected markets last year they decided to introduce it nationwide for a limited time. KFC spokesman Rick Maynard noted that "more indulgent" sandwiches like the Double Down share menu space with lower-calorie options.

"That's one of the things that make our restaurants popular," he said. "We have something for everyone."

New KFC Opens In Palms? Sort of...

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/fast-food/kfc-marijuana-dispensary/

New KFC Opens In Palms? Sort of...(Instead of Fried Chicken, They Sell Marijuana)
By Noah Galuten in Fast Food, Food Oddities
Thursday, Aug. 27 2009

There has been an abandoned Kentucky Fried Chicken in Palms, slumping sadly these past few months on the corner of Exposition Blvd. and Hughes Ave. What, locals wondered, would replace it? A new burger joint? A Peruvian rotisserie chicken stand? It turns out that the KFC has been replaced by... a KFC. In this instance, though, the KFC stands for "Kind For Cures", and while they do sell things that are edible, you can't buy them, or even ask about them, without a prescription.

Fried chicken spot becomes weed dispensary, probably serves similar clientele.

There have been marijuana dispensaries popping up all over Southern California of late, but this one is slightly different. Rather than tearing the whole thing down and starting from scratch, the proprietors of this alternative KFC decided to incorporate the design of the previous tenants. They have removed the official Kentucky Fried Chicken logo, but the rest of the building remains mostly intact.

So do they plan on selling hot biscuits with THC butter? Can you order your Pineapple Express by the bucket? Do they offer family meals? "No comment." Hm. I suppose we'll have to take that as a no.

Kind For Cures, 3516 Hughes Ave, Palms, (310) 836-5463

Tags: dispensaries, fried chicken, KFC, Marijuana, Noah Galuten, pot

6 Craziest Conspiracy Theories

6 Craziest Conspiracy Theories

1. The 1969 NASA moon landing was faked. Skeptics point to everything from missing blueprints to lunar footprints to the mysterious flapping flag in the absence of wind as evidence of NASA pulling the wool over the world’s eyes. Even proof that flags can flap in space without wind (the momentum of planting the flagstaff caused the flapping motion) and thorough examinations of the supposed fake moon recordings cannot placate the naysayers.

2. Secret societies run the world. Behind every successful man and woman is a mysterious cult. At least, that’s what the theory states. Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Skull and Bones Society, and others are all potential secret world powers. Knowing that some leaders were in fact members of such organizations – George W. Bush and John Kerry were both Skull and Bones members – only adds fuel to this occult-fearing paranoia.

3. Lizard people run the world. Followers of British reporter David Icke’s reptilian overlord theory believe that an alien race of reptiles have cross-bred with humans to create shape-shifting creatures that can assume humanoid form. The alien race controls these humanoid half-breeds, some of whom have included Queen Elizabeth and Bill Clinton, and infiltrates them into the unsuspecting human society in an effort to dominate the planet.

4. Paul McCartney is dead and has been replaced by a doppelganger. Forget about Elvis impersonators, the “other” Sir Paul has taken looking like the beloved Beatle to a whole new level. Conspiracy theorists say that the original beloved Beatle died in 1966 in a car crash and was instantly replaced with a lookalike for the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Lennon sprinkled clues to that fact into every post-1966 Beatles recording.

5. Microsoft embeds secret messages of hate in Wingdings font. In 1992’s release of Windows 3.1, users discovered that typing in “NYC” in Wingdings produced the symbols of a skull, the Star of David, and a thumbs up gesture. Font conspiracy theorists accused Microsoft of secretly approving the killing of Jews in New York City. Then, after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, users found that typing in “Q33NY” produced what looked like a plane flying into the Twin Towers, followed by a skull and Star of David. The holes with this theory were that “Q33” did not relate to the attacks despite rumors that it was the bus route or flight numbers of the hijacked planes, and the attacks did not target the Jewish community.

6. KFC or Church’s fried chicken is full of chemicals made to sterilize black men. In both versions, the chicken chains are covertly run by Ku Klux Klan members bent on halting the reproduction of African Americans by pumping the food full of drugs that would make men impotent. Any research into the ownership of the chains would prove this rumor false. No word yet on how the drugs are able to only target African American consumers.

This post was contributed by Amber Hensley, who writes for http://www.online-college-reviews.com

She welcomes your feedback at AmberHensley1980@yahoo.com

A Bacon Sandwich That Uses Fried Chicken As "Bread"

http://consumerist.com/5342699/kfc-has-a-bacon-sandwich-that-uses-fried-chicken-as-bread

Meg Marco
Fri Aug 21 2009

This is perhaps man's greatest achievement or evidence of our civilization's impending doom. Maybe it's both.

Meet the KFC "double down." Although no mention of it is made on KFC.com and we have never seen an ad for it ourselves, we are being lead to believe that it is real by Foodgeekery.com. They have crappy cell phone camera footage of a commercial (from Omaha, apparently) for the mysterious beast, as well as photographic evidence of it in the wild.

The sandwich consists of two fried chicken fillets wrapped around bacon, cheese and Colonel's sauce. It apparently tastes like you think it would. An early-adopter explains:

That's it? That is the sandwich? That's not worth five dollars. Oh… oh my God. That is the best thing ever. I don't know what "Colonel's Sauce" is, but it is like a party in my mouth. This is completely worth the five dollars. Unfortunately I'm going to end up weighing 700 lbs after this, but it is simply amazing.

Have you eaten it?

Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107496/top-5-fast-food-value-menu-deals.html

Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals
by Tara Struyk
Friday, August 14, 2009

Common wisdom suggests that it's cheaper to cook your own meals at home than it is to eat in a restaurant. But as the economy's slump continues, fast-food restaurants have been trumpeting the financial merits of their value menus, many of which offer filling food for a dollar or less.

With these companies' ability to buy food in mass quantities at much greater discounts than what you can get from even a discount grocer, can you really compete? Let's take a look the top five fast food values out there today.

Breaking It Down

To come up with per-serving prices for ingredients in these fast food items, we used their average or estimated retail costs. These will vary depending on where you live and where you shop. The cost of individual condiments was excluded for simplicity's sake.

No. 5 KFC: The "Snacker" Is Just That

KFC launched its 10-item value menu in February, but unlike some of the other chains on this list, only three of its value offerings fall under the $1 mark. The best value of the bunch is probably the Ultimate Cheese KFC Snacker, a 3-ounce breaded chicken strip covered in cheese sauce and lettuce on a dinner-roll sized bun.

At 115 grams, it's a considerable lightweight compared to the other value menu items on this list, which weigh in anywhere from 128 grams (Taco Bell) to 151 grams (McDonald's).

Per-Sandwich Cost at KFC: 99 cents
Per Sandwich Cost at Home:
-Chicken(prepared at home at $3/pound): 56 cents
-Dinner Roll: 15 cents
-Cheese Sauce: 4 cents
-Total: 75 cents + condiments and cooking time

Bottom Line: You can make this at home for less, but only if you can crack the Colonel's secret recipe.

No. 4 Burger King: Where's the Cheese?

There are more than a dozen value menu items at Burger King. The Whopper Junior, a standard burger with 2.2 ounces of beef, is the most substantial item, but unlike the other burgers on this list it does not include cheese. According to BeefRetail.org, the average price of regular ground beef as of March 2009 was $2.44.

Per-Burger Cost at Burger King: 99 cents (depending on where you live)
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 33 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 58 cents + condiments and cooking time

Bottom Line: If you make your own version of a Junior Whopper, you can add a slice of cheese and a little extra meat and still get more food for $1.

No. 3 Taco Bell: Why Pay More?

Taco Bell's ‘Why Pay More?’ Value Menu has some of the lowest prices around, with 10 products priced at 79, 89 and 99 cents. This Mexican-inspired food goes for prices that you might see in, well, Mexico. The hot item on this menu is reportedly the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, an eight-ounce giant with about 2.5 ounces of seasoned ground beef, cheese sauce, seasoned rice and red sauce.

Per-Burrito Cost at Taco Bell: 99 cents
Per Burrito Cost at Home:
-Meat: 38 cents
-Tortilla: 25 cents
-Cheese Sauce (prepared, 1/2 ounce): ~15 cents
-Rice (at a price of 4 cents per ounce and assuming two ounces): 8 cents
-Total: 86 cents + condiments and cooking time

Bottom Line: If you make a similar item at home, you might be cutting it close in terms of coming out ahead of this fast-food item, as tortillas can easily cost as much as 40 cents each, depending on where you shop. If you make your own tortillas, you could make a similar burrito for as little as 60 cents.

No.2 McDonald's: Budgets Are Lovin' It

The iconic Mcdonald's dollar menu has been around since 2002, and although it offers only a handful of items, they seem like a steal. A dollar-menu staple, something you could actually call "lunch", is the McDouble: two hamburger patties, one slice of cheese, condiments and a bun.

Per-Burger Cost at McDonalds: $1
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 49 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 94 cents + condiments and the time it takes to cook it

Bottom Line: Assuming the cost of the condiments adds a few more cents, you can see that the McDouble is a tantalizingly good value.

No.1 Wendy's: It's Value

Wendy's doesn't have a signature sandwich but it does capitalize on its signature square burger patties. But does this chain offer a product that's "wayyyy better than fast food" in terms of value?

In a word: yes. Look at Wendy's Double Stack burger, one of the key items on its sizable Super Value Menu. It is advertised as a 99-cent item and consists of two 1.78 ounce hamburger patties, a cheese slice and condiments.

Per-Burger Cost at Wendy's: 99 cents
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 54 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Total: 99 cents +condiments and cooking time

Bottom Line: As it turns out, Wendy's really isn't cutting corners with its signature square burgers. If you can find a Wendy's location that's selling this item for 99 cents (some have bumped the price up to $1.49), you'll be sinking your teeth into the most beef you can get for less than a dollar.

Can I Take Your Order?

So, while in most cases you can't get better deal at the drive-through window than in the grocery aisle, if you stick to value menu items, the savings gleaned by flipping your own burgers are very small, particularly for top fast food restaurants like Wendy's and McDonalds.

It all depends on what you value most. If your top priorities are convenience and price, fast food chains may be the most budget-friendly way to fill your stomach. If you're worried about food quality - or your waistline - these cheap, filling fast food deals may not be your best bet.

The Cult of the McRib

http://www.maxim.com/TheCultoftheMcRib/articles/48421.aspx

HUMOR
The Cult of the McRib
In search of the legendary bone-free porky treat that inspired a national obsession.
By Adam Winer

Chicago is shivering beneath the first snowflakes of winter as my rental car skirts the area that was once the meat packing capital of the country. The sky is gray, the trees are bare, the air is raw. But as I make one final turn I find myself basking in the celestial glow of the Golden Arches, beneath which are the three magic words I’ve flown some 800 miles to see: MCRIBS ARE BACK!

McDonald’s McRib is a sandwich of legend. The heavenly blend of pork patty, barbecue sauce, and bun is, to devotees, so addictive that songs have been written about it, Internet shrines erected to it, and TV shows dedicated to it. Yet McDonald’s has made the McRib a limited edition, available only in certain areas of the country for part of the year. It is rarely seen, yet frequently sought and cultishly worshiped. It is the Holy Grail on a bun.

Because I live in New York, where the sandwich is nearly impossible to come by, it has been 15 years since I’ve eaten a McRib. So what to do when McDonald’s offers not only to divulge where it can be found but also to provide access to the men behind the McRib?

It’s time for a McRoadtrip.

I begin my pork-a-thon in Oak Brook, Illinois, where the McDonald’s corporate headquarters is based and where the local franchise sits a mere 100 yards from Ronald’s corner office. My McRib arrives dressed with pickle slices, an even sprinkling of onion arcs, and a healthy dose of barbecue sauce. Literally shaking with anticipation, I take a bite. It’s delicious. The precise appropriation of barbecue sauce per­fectly complements the light saltiness of the rib-shaped meat patty, bringing out its porky grace notes. The pickles burst forth with a sourness that contrasts with the sauce’s sweetness. And the onions rush in to leave the palate with a robust kick. “The more taste sen­sations you can have in a product, the more interesting it is to your tongue,” says Dan Coudreau, head chef for McDonald’s in the United States. “All those savory, salty, sweet, and sour flavors work together. It’s a classic taste combination with barbecue.”

Initially test-marketed in 1981, the McRib was the brainchild of McDonald’s first ex­ec­u­tive chef, Rene Arend, who’d been plucked from the kitchen of a local luxury hotel and tasked with increasing the franchise’s menu options. Arend’s most industry-altering achievement would prove to be the creation of the Chicken McNugget in 1979. And it was the success of the nugget that necessitated the immediate invention of the McRib. “The McNuggets were so well received that every franchise wanted them,” says Arend, now an 80-year-old retiree living in Chicago. “There wasn’t a system to supply enough chicken. We had to come up with something to give the other franchises as a new product. So the McRib came about because of the shortage of chickens.”

The McRib’s direct inspiration was Southern BBQ. “I had just come back from Charleston, South Carolina, where I ate sandwiches made from pulled pork,” Arend remembers. “I said to myself, Something with that flavor should really go over.”

But instead of pulling his pork, Arend decided to give the meat its legendarily absurd shape: Even though it contains no bones, the patty is molded to resemble a miniature rack of ribs. “Some thought, Why not just make it round?” recalls Arend. “It would’ve been easier. But I wanted it to look like a slab of ribs.”

About sixty miles southwest of Chicago, at a Mickey D’s in Kankakee, Illinois, the booths are packed with sauce-stained customers. “I don’t normally go to McDonald’s, but when I saw McRibs were back on the menu, I was like, ‘I gotta get me one,’” says Oliver Corpuz, a 36-year-old attorney. “I’m not even sure if it’s all really pork in there. It’s some sort of extruded meat product.”

Contrary to what its name implies, there is very little actual rib meat in a McRib. “Primar­ily, it’s shoulder meat,” explains Rob Cannell, director of McDonald’s U.S. supply chain. “The McRib is made in large processing plants—lots of stainless steel, a number of production lines, and these long cryogenic freezers. The pork meat is chopped up, then seasoned, then formed into that shape that looks like a rib back. Then we flash-freeze it. The whole process from fresh pork to frozen McRib takes about 45 minutes.”

Since the McRib is a promotional sandwich, as opposed to a full-time menu item, each individual restaurant gets to decide whether or not to stock it. Hence the scarcity that has made it the Halley’s Comet of fast-food entrees. McDonald’s has alerted me which Illinois lo­cations are currently carrying the McRib, so I make a number of stops as night falls. But for the average fan there is the McRib Locator Map at mcrib.kleincast.com, a tracking Web site created by Minneapolis-area meteorologist and hardcore pork enthusiast Alan Klein.

“My inspiration came a year ago when some friends of mine were having a hard time finding McRibs,” explains Klein. On his map visitors can report locations where they’ve found a McRib, allowing rib-heads everywhere to benefit from the shared tracking info. As I stop for the night in Urbana-Champaign, I plug all my finds into the site’s map—the better to help others on pork pilgrimages.

The McRib’s place in the pop culture firmament was solidly established with the 12th episode of the 14th season of The Simpsons. In it Homer becomes addicted to Krusty Burger’s new “Ribwich,” which is made from a mysterious animal Krusty refuses to identify. Obviously, Homer has no choice but to abandon his family to tour the country with other rib addicts. The gorging stops only after Krusty announces that the’ve eaten the mysterious animal into extinction. “Homer would follow it around like people followed the Grateful Dead around,” says Simpsons executive pro­ducer Al Jean. “We asked Bob Seger to sing the commercial for the Ribwich, but he declined.” The McRib has repeatedly popped up in Letterman’s Top 10 Lists (Top 10 Surprises in Clinton’s State of the Union Address: 2. If reelected, would bring back the McRib Sandwich) and was in an episode of Adult Swim’s The Boondocks in which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. returns to the modern day and discov­ers the wonders of processed pork patties. “Oh, snap! No they didn’t!” exclaims King. “A boneless rib sandwich. What will they think of next?”

“The McRib has all the trappings of a true cultural phenomenon,” says Chris Sivori, a former video game tester in Austin, Texas who chron­icled his coworkers’ annual McRib eating challenge on his Web site, letterneversent.com. “It’s so mysterious. A bone-shaped thing that has no bones in it? That’s out of control.”

After the McRib rolled out nationwide in 1982, McDonald’s learned the sandwich worked best as a limited-time offering. Its restricted availability has become a marketing tool. A few years back McDonald’s even launched a highly publicized Farewell Tour, announcing that the McRib was about to disappear forever, only to bring it back the following year for another Farewell Tour. “The McRib was like the Who,” chef Coudreaut admits. McDonald’s still sold 30 million of them in 2007, totaling more than seven million pounds of pig meat.

Driving through St. Louis, a billboard over the horizon announces mcrib: makes moist towelettes feel wanted, and indeed the city’s franchises have a predilection for heavy saucing. As I down one last sandwich before heading home, I leave a glob of sauce in the box and a mound of soiled napkins on the tray. The experience leaves me feeling oddly content.

On my way to the St. Louis airport to fly back to New York, I buy four final McRibs and shove them into my carry-on bag. Somewhere over Ohio, I reach for my bag to sneak out a midflight snack. As I open the McRib container, its aroma of pork and lukewarm sauce pervades the cabin. The middle-aged woman stuck sitting next to me looks visibly horrified. But her husband one seat over? I’m going to categorize him as envious. Yes, you can smell it in the air: The McRib is back.

Sandwich Cemetery

For every McRib, a ton of items end up in that big drive-through in the sky.

McD.L.T.
McDonald’s (1985)
A container that separated the warm patty from the cool veggies. Genius! The jaunty ad starring Jason Alexander was just a bonus.

Chicken Littles
KFC (1987)
The sky began to fall when KFC introduced these mini-sandwiches. Seems fans don’t want to be reminded of White Castle’s Slyders.

Bell Beefer
Taco Bell (c. 1970)
There are two lessons to be learned from this monstrosity: 1. Taco Bell should stick to tacos. 2. Pick a name that’s at least vaguely appetizing.

Fire-Grilled Salads
Burger King (2004)
This edible oxymoron included a “specially designed pouch” with hot chicken to be poured over the chilled greens.

KFC shoring up security for secret recipe

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i93kT0nd02EyaFhMjfsBYT-ZQw1QD93392S00

KFC shoring up security for secret recipe
By BRUCE SCHREINER
9-9-8

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Pssst. The secret's out at KFC. Well, sort of.

Colonel Harland Sanders' handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices was removed Tuesday from safekeeping at KFC's corporate offices for the first time in decades. The temporary relocation is allowing KFC to revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country's most famous corporate secrets.

The brand's top executive admitted his nerves were aflutter despite the tight security he lined up for the operation.

"I don't want to be the president who loses the recipe," KFC President Roger Eaton said. "Imagine how terrifying that would be."

The recipe that launched the chicken chain was placed in a lock box that was handcuffed to security expert Bo Dietl, who climbed aboard an armored car that whisked away with an escort from off-duty police officers.

Eaton's parting words to Dietl, "Keep it safe."

So important is the 68-year-old concoction that coats the chain's Original Recipe chicken that only two company executives at any time have access to it. The company refuses to release their names or titles, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents.

Dietl, a former New York City police detective, assured Eaton that the iconic recipe would be safe.

"There's no way, shape or form ... that anybody is going to get their hands on this recipe," he said. "And if they get their hands on this recipe, they have to take me with them."

His security firm is also handling the security improvements for the recipe at headquarters, but he wouldn't say what changes they're making.

KFC executives said they decided to upgrade security after retrieving the recipe amid preparations to add a new line of Original Recipe chicken strips.

The recipe has been stashed at the company headquarters for decades, and for more than 20 years has been tucked away in a filing cabinet equipped with two combination locks. To reach the cabinet, the keepers of the recipe would first open up a vault and unlock three locks on a door that stood in front of the cabinet.

Vials of the herbs and spices are also stored in the secret filing cabinet.

"The smell is overwhelming when you open it," said one of two keepers of the recipe in an interview at company headquarters.

The biggest prize, though, is a single sheet of notebook paper, yellowed by age, that lays out the entire formula — including exact amounts for each ingredient — written in pencil and signed by Sanders.

Others have tried to replicate the recipe, and occasionally someone claims to have found a copy of Sanders' creation. The executive said none have come close, adding the actual recipe would include some surprises.

Sanders developed the formula in 1940 at his tiny restaurant in southeastern Kentucky and used it to launch the KFC chain in the early 1950s.

Sanders died in 1980, but his likeness is still central to KFC's marketing.

"The recipe to him, in later years, was everything he stood for," said Shirley Topmiller, his personal secretary for about 12 years.

Larry Miller, a restaurant analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said the recipe's value is "almost an immeasurable thing. It's part of that important brand image that helps differentiate the KFC product."

KFC had a total of 14,892 locations worldwide at the end of 2007. The chain has had strong sales overseas, especially in its fast-growing China market, but has struggled in the U.S. amid a more health-conscious public. KFC posted U.S. sales of $5.3 billion at company-owned and franchised stores in 2007.