mmm... french fries

So last night for an assignment, we were to look at nutrition facts and what not for fast food places.

Naturally, I decided to look at french fries:

Nutrition Facts																			% Daily Value
Medium French Fries	4 oz (114 g)	380	180	20	31	4	20	5	0	0	220	9	47	16	5	19	0	4	0	10	2	6

Oh god, is there really that much crap in them? 380 calories for fries alone; that's not including your burger with 500+ calories or your milkshake with another bajillion calories.

Is it necessary to be that unhealthy? If McDonald's really wanted to, could they make a healthier french fry? Maybe it wouldn't be cost effective, so maybe that's why they wouldn't want to. But they could totally pull a new marketing stunt for a new, healthy french fry.

Everyone thinks of McDonald's as unhealthy, but people still eat there, so why should McDonald's do anything about it?

Often people will argue about who makes the best frnech fry in the fast food agency. There certainly is variation between them, but it mostly comes down to personal preference, I think.

McDonald's french fries claim to be America's favorite fry. They have a special taste and texture to them that you don't really find elsewhere. They're usually crispy, and generally thin like shoestring fries. In an excerpt from the book Fast Food Nation, they actually report that McDonald's fries taste so different because of the way they are fried. The "oil" the fries are made in is actually mostly beef tallow, so when you're eating that french fry, it has a subtle taste of that burger you're eating too. I wonder if the vegetarians know this? Anyway, then the fries are usually drowned in salt afterward and end up tasting like poo anyway.

I remember a few years ago when Toy Story came out and Burger King was all, "Look guys we changed our fries!!1!" I feel like they've changed again since then too, because they have a little less seasoning on them than they did then, and I think it works better. A Burger King fry is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and also has a trademark taste, different from McDonald's. However, out of the main three burger joints in the North East, I think their fries are the worst. I guess it is because they are so soft in the middle, and the weird seasonings they use. I just don't like it haha.

Now Wendy's, they know how to make a good french fry. It's not too crispy, it's not too soft, it has a happy place right in the middle. I remember a couple years ago that Wendy's redid their fries too (although they didn't make as big of a deal as BK did.) They used to be more irregularly shaped and a lot more soggy. Recently, they've taken a uniform shape, almost similar to McDonald's, but a little thicker, and the seasonings were worked on too a little. Another thing I like about Wendy's, is that they don't over salt their french fries like the other places do. They give you your own little salt packets to do that (I usually don't use them and throw them out). If McDonald's gave you a salt packet to put on their fries, I would be afraid, since they're already saturated with it.

But yeah. In the three major burger joints in the North East, I'd have to say Wendy's has the best french fry made of delicious and potato. Other fast food places make fries too, like Poppeye's (nasty fries), KFC (mediocre potato wedges), and so on, but none of them are really good, haha.

Fast food restaurants everywhere, as well as fancy-shmancy ones, all have french fries. So why shouldn't Dunkin' Donuts?

Dunkin' Donuts recently released these little hash brown creations (they were actually released last year, I believe, but they have just started pushing them), to go with their combo meals (McDonald's much?). You can get a sausage, egg & cheese bagel, medium hot coffee -- regular, and now you can get your hash browns to go with it.

These hash browns are definitely related to the french fry we find everyday at fast food restaurants. McDonald's and Burger King had been adding hash browns to their breakfasts for ages. Since you obviously can't serve french fries for breakfast (at least for now), Dunkin' Donuts had to think of another solution.

A side order is a staple in American fast food cuisine. Without one, it just doesn't really seem like a meal.

This hash brown pretty much serves the purpose of a breakfast french fry (as the real ones usually aren't bite sized). They're quick to cook, easy to sell, and if Rachel Ray loves them, why shouldn't America?

Personally, I think they taste like seasoned cardboard, but I am no food connoisseur. Give them a try. They'll probably become as common as french fries in McDonald's some day.

Sometimes people can get bored with their plain french fries with ketchup. They turn to alternate ways to dress them up!

A favorite of mine is the bacon, cheese, and ranch dressing explosion. You start with a layer of french fries, add some cheese on top of that, sprinkle some crumbled bacon, and dip it in a small (or large) cup of ranch dressing on the side.

Sometimes, people will substitute the bacon & ranch for some chilli, to create the ever delicious chilli cheese fries.

Googling french fry toppings, I also found something interesting.

Poutine is a dish of french fries found in Canada (especially in Quebec), topped with some sort of cheese curd and gravy. Yum. /sarcasm

Apparently, this is something popular in Canada, sold even at fast food resturaunts like McDonald's.

Other countries top their fries with different things too, like tartar sauce in the Netherlands, but that's too far from home for me.

I don't know how I feel about this curd-gravy dish, but I suppose maybe Canadians think the same of our cheddar-bacon-artery-hardening goodness.

So I went to Brigham's grille the other day at the mall because I was hungry and my friends and I were going to see a movie.

Well let me tell you, America can take anything good like a salad, and make it bad for you.

Looking at all their overpriced items on the menu, I eventually decided to get a chicken ceasar salad wrap with french fires.

Mmmm, grease.

So I got my wrap with lettuce, deep fried chicken, cheese and excessive amounts of dressing, and a pile of french fries on the side of my plate.

I love how we can go anywhere in America and take something as healthy as a salad, and turn it into artery clogging suprise with french fries.

What are these? What makes them "fries"? I guess they're kind of shaped like french fries, but they do not really taste anything like them (or anything else for that matter). Do they even have potatoes in them? I was curious about this "baked & crunchy" fry.

So Andy Capp was this comic or whatever in the late 50's. Jumping ahead a few years to 1971, Cheddar Fries were introduced using Mr. Capp as its logo. They have a description on ConAgra Food's website:

Unconventional in form and texture, Andy Capp's fries look like french fries but crunch like chips. It's a unique alternative to regular potato chips. Andy Capp's fries pack a powerful flavor punch in every crunch with zero grams of trans fat per serving.

Andy Capp's regular fries are available in Hot and Cheddar varieties, while Andy Capp's steak fries are available in White Cheddar Cheese and Hot Chili Cheese varieties. ^{ConAgra Foods}

I like how they add that zero grams of trans fat in there, making it seem almost healthy. It was a lot harder to find the product's nutrition value than their umpteen delicious flavors. They have it organized by "low fat!" or "high fiber!" I couldn't find a link that simply said "click here for nutrition info."

...alright, I've searched for like 20 minutes and can't find it on their website (I thought every product was supposed to have their nutritional information online?) So I gave up and googled it, and found this from here:

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 oz. (50 Fries /28g)

Amount per Serving
Calories 150 Calories from Fat 70
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 7g	11%
Saturated Fat 3g	15%
Monounsaturated Fat 2.5g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 300mg	12%
Total Carbohydrate 17g	6%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Sugars 1g
Protein 2g	4%

Iron

4%

Low trans fat? Yayy! What about all that saturated fat? And mmmm, sodium. And it's also worth noting that a regular bag has 3.5 ounces in it, so multiply everything by 3.5. I guess that's why it's called junk food. (But look at all that protein!)

Also, I looked up the ingredients from here:
I don't know what the majority of that stuff is, but at least they contain SOME potatoes like the food they're based off of. Although I bet the percentage of "degermed yellow corn meal" is a lot higher.

So yeah. These "fries" aren't really anything like their namesake, but I guess it's just like "onion flavored rings." The shapes determine what they are instead of the ingredients/taste.