Thoraiya DyerIntroducing the KFC One Sixth Your Intake But Half Your Fat Snack Box
April 28th 2008 01:20
KFC knew what it was doing when it started marketing the Snack Box for high school kids.
Teenagers often stop eating home-cooked meals and turn to a life of snacking on whatever is closest as they scoot from school to friends’ houses to part-time jobs. Friendly nutritional advice such as this seems hilarious when compared to the crap that 17-year-old boys actually eat:
“Eating meals and snacking away from home puts the responsibility for good food choices right in adolescents' hands. Snacks should be low in both fat and added sugar. Some healthful snack ideas include fresh fruit, sliced vegetables with low-fat dip, low-fat yoghurt, low-fat cheese, peanut butter and crackers, baked chips, granola bars, and crackers.”
KFC knows exactly how many skaters, surfies and footy players, not to mention emos and nerds, want sliced vegetables with low-fat dip, and how many want 11 Secret Herbs and Spices.
OK, so they’re going to snack on the Snack Box. What’s wrong with that?
According to “The New Food Pyramid and Child Nutrition,” by Vincent Iannelli, M.D.,:
“…your daily calorie requirements… can range from the 1000 calorie level of a two year old toddler to the 3200 calorie level of a very active eighteen year old teenage boy.”
So, in a way, it’s good that KFC is pitching the Snack Box at teenage boys. Not only are they the ones too lazy to cook a chicken breast if it miraculously sprang into their hand and the pan sprang onto the miraculously lighted stove, but they seem to have the highest calorie requirement.
More room for error!
Still, not room enough.
The Snack Box contains a piece of chicken plus chips. If I check the nutrition page at kfc.co.uk, I find that one piece of “Original recipe chicken” contains 267 Kcals.
267 000 calories? That can’t be right!
Switching to the Australian KFC site, I find that one piece of chicken is 943 kilojoules, or 225 calories.
Phew, that was close. Someone needs to mention shonky maths to KFC in the UK… or is it that nobody there has even looked at the nutritional information?
Back to the Snack Box, the fries component adds another 1296 kj, or 310 calories.
Well, so what? Added together, the chicken and fries are only 535 calories; plenty of room for that in the 3200 calorie diet of an active teenage male. A mere one sixth!
Emo In Many-Buckled Boots and his friends could eat SIX Snack Boxes!
But I’m afraid (as mentioned by Louie from Climate Forum on the Health Bars post) no more than 30% of anyone’s calories should come from fat.
That’s 93g of fat in total for our teenage boys.
The Snack Box, tasty as it might be, delivers 42.8g of fat, or almost half the daily amount of fat.
Sorry, Emo In Many-Buckled Boots. Only two Snack Boxes for you after all.
And here’s another problem. Adolescents require 1200 to 1500mg of calcium each day. There’s hardly any calcium in potatoes, and a piece of chicken will only provide 2% of that daily requirement.
If Emo only has two Snack Boxes to eat all day, his bones are going to get all uselessly wibbly and soft, and the next time he gets punched by Pissed Dropout Bogan In Thongs, he’s going to sustain some serious injuries. Watch out, Emo!
Seriously, even if he doesn't have a run-in with Bogan, he's going to have crappy bone density and osteoporosis problems later in life. What he needs (instead of a Pepsi) is 600mL of milk, some yoghurt, some cheese or a big plate of broccoli.
AND he won’t be able to have much of anything if he’s already gobbled his daily allocation of fat. That might leave him pretty hungry.
Maybe the Snack Box is not such a great idea after all.
Teenagers often stop eating home-cooked meals and turn to a life of snacking on whatever is closest as they scoot from school to friends’ houses to part-time jobs. Friendly nutritional advice such as this seems hilarious when compared to the crap that 17-year-old boys actually eat:
“Eating meals and snacking away from home puts the responsibility for good food choices right in adolescents' hands. Snacks should be low in both fat and added sugar. Some healthful snack ideas include fresh fruit, sliced vegetables with low-fat dip, low-fat yoghurt, low-fat cheese, peanut butter and crackers, baked chips, granola bars, and crackers.”
KFC knows exactly how many skaters, surfies and footy players, not to mention emos and nerds, want sliced vegetables with low-fat dip, and how many want 11 Secret Herbs and Spices.
OK, so they’re going to snack on the Snack Box. What’s wrong with that?
According to “The New Food Pyramid and Child Nutrition,” by Vincent Iannelli, M.D.,:
“…your daily calorie requirements… can range from the 1000 calorie level of a two year old toddler to the 3200 calorie level of a very active eighteen year old teenage boy.”
So, in a way, it’s good that KFC is pitching the Snack Box at teenage boys. Not only are they the ones too lazy to cook a chicken breast if it miraculously sprang into their hand and the pan sprang onto the miraculously lighted stove, but they seem to have the highest calorie requirement.
More room for error!
Still, not room enough.
The Snack Box contains a piece of chicken plus chips. If I check the nutrition page at kfc.co.uk, I find that one piece of “Original recipe chicken” contains 267 Kcals.
267 000 calories? That can’t be right!
Switching to the Australian KFC site, I find that one piece of chicken is 943 kilojoules, or 225 calories.
Phew, that was close. Someone needs to mention shonky maths to KFC in the UK… or is it that nobody there has even looked at the nutritional information?
Back to the Snack Box, the fries component adds another 1296 kj, or 310 calories.
Well, so what? Added together, the chicken and fries are only 535 calories; plenty of room for that in the 3200 calorie diet of an active teenage male. A mere one sixth!
Emo In Many-Buckled Boots and his friends could eat SIX Snack Boxes!
But I’m afraid (as mentioned by Louie from Climate Forum on the Health Bars post) no more than 30% of anyone’s calories should come from fat.
That’s 93g of fat in total for our teenage boys.
The Snack Box, tasty as it might be, delivers 42.8g of fat, or almost half the daily amount of fat.
Sorry, Emo In Many-Buckled Boots. Only two Snack Boxes for you after all.
And here’s another problem. Adolescents require 1200 to 1500mg of calcium each day. There’s hardly any calcium in potatoes, and a piece of chicken will only provide 2% of that daily requirement.
If Emo only has two Snack Boxes to eat all day, his bones are going to get all uselessly wibbly and soft, and the next time he gets punched by Pissed Dropout Bogan In Thongs, he’s going to sustain some serious injuries. Watch out, Emo!
Seriously, even if he doesn't have a run-in with Bogan, he's going to have crappy bone density and osteoporosis problems later in life. What he needs (instead of a Pepsi) is 600mL of milk, some yoghurt, some cheese or a big plate of broccoli.
AND he won’t be able to have much of anything if he’s already gobbled his daily allocation of fat. That might leave him pretty hungry.
Maybe the Snack Box is not such a great idea after all.
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