Is Kentucky Fried Chicken a Healthy Place to Eat?

In his book Big Secrets, William Poundstone claimed KFC's formula for batter containing "11 secret herbs and spices" is nothing more than salt, black pepper, flour, and monosodium glutamate. Mon dieux! The good Colonel Sanders turned millions of people into MSG junkies? We're not buying it-fat junkies, maybe.

MSG or not, the dangers of fried food have been well-known for decades, as Satchel Paige said in his biography in 1953, "Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood." Well the Colonel is long gone, but his fingerlickin' fried chicken is still with us, working its magic on a new generation of arteries. KFC may be the most unreconstructed of all the big fast food purveyors, but at least it's consistent. And if you hunt around you can even find some menu items that won't raise your blood pressure.

If taste is no object

Mashed potatoes and gravy are a good choice in most fast food places that offer them. They are relatively high in nutrients and low in calories and fat-even with gravy poured on top. The taste, however, sometimes leaves a little to be desired. Even Colonel Sanders didn't care for KFC's mashed potatoes, once pronouncing them "sludge" and saying the gravy had begun to "look and taste like wallpaper paste," These remarks, uttered after the Colonel had sold his company, triggered a libel suit in Kentucky court that was later dismissed as groundless. (Whether his comment was unfair to wallpaper paste did not come up.) Still, if you can choke them down, KFC's mashed potatoes will only cost you 120 calories and six grams of fat.

Better than you thought

The Tender Roast sandwich (without sauce) is a satisfying mouthful at 270 calories, but only has 5 grams of fat and is relatively low in cholesterol. It even tastes pretty good.

You knew it was bad for you

Anything given away by taverns to entice people to drink more beer is hard to take seriously as a restaurant item. Take spicy chicken wings, for example. The KFC version, called Hot Wings, is a scrawny, six-piece appetizer weighing about as much as one chicken breast. But Hot Wings are so greasy they pack in 471 calories (63 percent from fat). Each order supplies half your daily allowance of both fat (33 grams) and cholesterol (150 milligrams). For goodnessake don't dunk them in ranch dressing.

But not this bad

The lowly pot pie may not be on the menu at Cordon Bleu, but it's supposed to be comfort food that's good for you-you know: chicken, flour, carrots, peas, onions. We're not sure how they did it, but KFC managed to make a pot pie that is 50 percent fat. The Chunky Chicken Pot Pie weighs as much as two hockey pucks and offers up a mean 770 calories, 42 grams of fat (13 grams of saturated fat), and 2,160 milligrams of sodium.