Brandon Eats a Double Down. Diarrhea Ensues.

Sometimes, to my dismay, I allow a joke to advance from flights of fancy and humor to the realm of possibility. Being snarky has its limits and then there's a time to be silly. That is the case with KFC's new sandwich, the Double Down. For those unfamiliar with this fried behemoth, the add wizards at KFC replaced a sandwich's traditional buns with fillets of original recipe fried chicken. In other words, they opted to forgo bread for maximum cholesterol. In between those golden, grease clogged slabs of chicken one finds the colonel's sauce, two slices of bacon, and slices of monterey jack and pepper jack cheese. I sipped on my A&W root beer while I waited for my name to be called and to peer at the recent darling of dietitians everywhere. The Double Down arrived hot and wrapped in paper to protect the eater from directly handling the greasy, gooey sandwich--a futile pursuit. The predominant flavor, as one would guess, is the fried chicken with hints of bacon mingled with the cheeses. All in all, as long as I neglected the nutrition facts, it was not as deplorable as I...well, envisioned. I can sum it up as anticlimactic.

Official photo

A Double Down's innards (thanks to treehugger for the image)

My brother-in-law, Dylan, visited this week and we snorted about the disgustingly tasty nature of this example of fast food run amok. I worked at a McDonalds and I still have an odd fascination with every unhealthy piece of "food" they and others advertise. For example, after watching Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, I left the theater thinking "I really want a McDonalds' cheeseburger." (No, I didn't have the same reaction after completing Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation). My family was no stranger to fast food and I partake in it when I'm at an airport from time to time. I fondly remember driving to Casey, Illinois, with my grandfather to a Kentucky Fried Chicken to feed myself and cousins. Stated another way, I don't turn my nose up at eating fast food once in a while on a lark or for expediency's sake. Some people have a knee jerk aversion toward fast food--for health and I would argue class reasons--and I won't take issue with that sentiment. From a public health stand point, I do not doubt that it is a blight in a country battling an obesity epidemic. I recognize fast food for what it is, and I don't think that a double cheese burger and coke is a gateway drug to a diet comprised solely of unidentifiable fried chicken parts laden with mysterious sauces that run down my chin as I watch re-runs of Hee Haw. Nor will it lead to a stroke tomorrow considering my diet and exercise. Regardless, Kate humored this excursion and my self-punishing side won't offer up expiation on the cheap. And, frankly, neither did my digestive track, which was not a shock.