Let's Ask Marion Nestle: Did Oprah's KFC Giveaway Do Us Any Favors?
(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)
Kat: Oprah's getting grilled over her KFC coupon giveaway for a free meal featuring two pieces of KFC's new, healthier grilled chicken (along with two carb-heavy side dishes and a biscuit.) From a purely nutritional perspective, there's no denying grilled is better than fried. But it's a safe bet that the folks who redeem this coupon will be washing that chicken down with gallons of soda. And the meat still comes from factory farms, which Oprah very publicly deplored when she came out in support of Proposition 2.
You witnessed firsthand the appalling conditions to which factory farmed chickens are subjected when you served as a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. The environmental degradation that CAFOs cause is another significant problem, as are the lousy working conditions in the poultry processing plants.
Yet, as a nutritionist, you would presumably applaud any attempt by a high-profile figure such as Oprah to nudge folks in a healthier direction. How do you feel about the KFC/Oprah flap?
Dr. Nestle: Your question raises an important philosophical issue hotly debated in the nutrition community today: Is a better junk food a good choice? Some would say that small nutritional improvements multiplied over an entire population will make an important difference to health. This is the philosophy behind shaving milligrams of sugar off of kids' breakfast cereals or adding a gram of fiber here and there.
But others, and I count myself among them, worry that such small changes merely create a "health aura"--the illusion that anything eaten in the vicinity of something healthful is automatically healthful too.
Researchers demonstrate the power of the health aura to give people license to make less nutritious choices. Brian Wansink and his colleagues at Cornell have shown that putting a low-fat label on a food product is all you have to do to get people to eat more calories from it than they would otherwise. And researchers have just shown that customers will order more French fries from a menu that lists a salad than they will from one that doesn't.
Those are examples of the health aura in action. If grilled chicken works for KFC as salads did for McDonald's, it will bring in new customers, at least temporarily. But health aura research predicts that having a healthier option at KFC will encourage most customers to order more of everything else.
My conclusion: the grilled chicken option is about marketing, not health. The proof? Oprah talked about it.
Where does that leave fast food restaurants? Isn't there anything they can do to promote the health of their customers? Indeed there is. Here are five simple suggestions: they could (1) make it easier and cheaper for customers to order smaller portions, (2) make healthy kids meals the default, (3) add vegetables (other than potatoes) to all of their meals, (4) provide fruit desserts, and (5) reduce the sugars and salt in everything they make.
What do you think the chances are that any fast food place will do these? Grilled chicken is easier and gets them off the hook, apparently.
Follow Kerry Trueman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrytrueman
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I didn't hear about the coupons until after the fact. Although I don't eat at fast food places I would have loved to take pictures of the momentous occasion. Oprah could be president if she wanted to be...now that's po wer. Oprah oprah Oprah!
it's about choosing the lesser evil. call it junk food but let people eat what they want!
what's sad here is Oprah was baited by KFC to jump the bandwagon and offer free meal coupons that weren't there! thumbs down to KFC!! never liked them...
http://showhype.com/story/kentucky_fraud_chicken_fraud_from_kfc_on_oprah_winfrey/
Oprah understands that chicken skin fried in grease isn't good for you. But she knows that the best way to get people who otherwise may not know or care about that fact ,is to promote this healthier option. The person who wrote this article has obviously never been poor, and has no understanding of that existence.
and you wonder why libs are called elitists
Eating healthy is elitist? Only in a stupid man's world.
They won't get a free meal, KFC is not honoring or accepting the coupons. They give you a form to fill out to send in with your coupon and then they will mail you a coupon to get your meal. Which will probably take 6 months to a year to get. RIDICULOUS
Get over yourself. Maybe its not the healthiest meal in the world but it is food. I downloaded a coupon as did my husband. I kept them in my car and gave them to street people that stand at intesections with signs asking for money.
I dont have extra money these days, but if they are hungry, the coupons will buy them a meal. Thanks Oprah!
Nothing wrong with eating from KFC from time to time. You can get more of a balanced meal from KFC than any of the burger joints.
Moderation is the key to any food, fast or slow.
Kerry Trueman you just hate Oprah because she's a rich and influential black woman. I don't believe for one second you'd care about this issue if Oprah were white.
As a divorced and laid off mom, I fed my two daughters and we were happy and content with the coupons. You may be blessed with abundance and opinions, but when you're hungry, you don't much care for anything except a full belly. It was a chance for us to eat out, which we haven't done in a long while, and be grateful for a small tasty gift.
I thought it was a compassionate gesture on Oprah's part. So don't throw stones. It was a choice to print the coupons. If you didn't want to you had that choice too.
LD, now that you put it that way....... ;-)
I feel you though. Times are hard, and believe me, I've been broke enough to appreciate the inexpensiveness that many fast food places provide. Unfotunately there just aren't enough cheap healthy options.
Good comment...I'm feeling you LD...handle your business...and good luck to you and your girls
I try to stay away from fast food in general.
Mostly because it's really not food.
I'm so disappointed that Oprah would promote Kentucky Fried Cruelty!
I thought she was more enlightened than that.
Yeah.
DITTO!!
The second to the last time we went to KFC was about 15 years ago when we were moving, got a bucket and felt so sick to our stomachs afterwords (from the meal, not incorrectly cooked food), we never went back. We are moving again, and after seeing the commercials and getting a coupon in the mail, we decided to try the grilled chicken family pack. Forget all the politics. First, the chicken pieces were so small that it has to be a way younger chicken than anything you buy in the store. Not worth the price we paid, certainly not worth it without the coupon. Secondly, the chicken was much worse than we cook at home. Third, even if you don't cook at home - the rotisserie chicken your supermarket offers is much better in taste and price, especially if they have specials (like $5 days like ours does every Friday). Next they had the worst mashed potatoes I have eaten in so many years I cannot remember the last time I had them that bad, tasted like instant to me. The gravy wasn't so bad for fast food, I mean you expect bad but considering it wasn't the worst, which to me was the tiny pieces of chicken. So they got us to give them a second chance, and it was a last chance. If you cannot cook at home, find a supermarket that has the rotisserie chicken and go that route.
While making veggies and healthier choices available to children is great, I wouldn't expect many adults to order a side of steamed broccoli with their Bacon Smokehouse Burger. You know what you're getting when you go to a fast food joint, so the onus is on the consumer to stay the hell away, and make better eating choices. Fast food is okay as an occasional treat, but people need to educate themselves on what it will take to make themselves healthier.
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