Someone just sent me this email. Is this true? >KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts. >First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? >KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. >The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. Is this for real?

Nah, I'm having chicken tonight. Perdue. I'm sure they changed their name to get rid of the connotation of "fried", and of the Colonel & Kentucky (southern plantation, confederacy, klan, etc.) I'm sure nobody's come up with a soylent chicken yet.

the most recent version of a hairless chicken I know about is a turken--the attempted to make a hairless chicken, except it turned out looking like a turkey. Wierd. They could de-beak and de-claw their birds, though. Most big companies do.

hairless chicken? have i taught you nothing, rhiannon? don't believe everything you read on a computer screen.

Better go to snopes.com.

I never said I believed it. Now if it were hairless squirrels....

I keep talling y'all... the only safe fast food is sushi. From a reputable establishment that offers take-out.

the only good fast food is dead fast food

someone once told me that they changed the name because colonel sanders had this thing written up that anyone who was destitute could eat at kentucky fried chicken for free. doesn't it seem like hydroponic chickens would be a lot more expensive than regular old chickens?

when i used to work for kentucky fried chicken, ages ago, there was a rumor that they were going to change the name to KFC because of the number of illiterate customers. the KFC bucket & colonel sanders logo are both quite recognizable. somebody figured out that if they were reduced to large, cartoonish styles & subsequently displayed w/ a simple name like KFC, then the whole enterprise would be more accessible to less-educated customers--the kind who'd be hard-pressed to look up a word like "kentucky" in the phone book when they wanted to order a bucket of chicken. i've heard from an ad exec in memphis that the cartoon version of colonel sanders they're presently using in TV ads is boosting business through the roof. then again, i also heard that the reason there are pictures slapped on almost every food item in the grocery store is not to provide "suggested serving" pictures--it's because there are so many illiterate shoppers that if a picture didn't appear on a can of green beans, they'd never know what the hell was in there.

apparently Semillama is the only one who seems to be responding to his training. Rhiannon, click the link: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/kfc.htm

Whoa, back up. The only safe fast food is sushi? I like raw fish as much as the next person, but there are some nasty diseases and parasites that one can pick up rather easily if it's not prepared right. Unlike your basic burger: slap a frozen patty on the grill, cook until tasteless. Pretty safe, other than that drop onto the floor between the grill and the bun. I can't believe that people actually circulate and believe in this sort of thing. There's got to be stacks of money to be had legally off the inexhaustible supply of human gullibility and desire to have one's fears and prejudices confirmed.

I don't think hamburger patties are generally precooked, though. in the early '90s at some jack in the box restaurants in seattle, the employees weren't cooking the burgers either hot enough or long enough. a bunch of people were infected with e. coli and some little kids died. how sick can you get from sushi? how can raw fish be prepared so it's fine to eat?

just has to be fresh, and your instruments have to be clean. jack in the box, because of the above mentioned news item, is the safest fast food in the market. also, the greasiest and consistantly the best goddamnit. AHHHH TWO TACOS FILLED WITH GOD KNOWS WHAT DEEP FRIED 99CENTS!!! AHAHAHHAHA!!! ULTIMATE BEEF CHEESE BEEF CHEESE BEEF CHEESE AHHAHAHAH!!! BEEF CHEESE TOMATO SOURDOUGH FRY FRY FRY AHAAHAH!!!!

i have a big problem with tacos that have a slice of american cheese in them....

well, if you're thinking "taco", maybe. but you have to dissolve your preconceptions. think "fried goodness". of course, i love american cheese. that might have something to do with it. i realized recently that i think of non-american cheese as "cheese you have to slice."

I love Jack in the box tacos,you just know the "meat" is dogfood with the ties Jack in the box has with Ralston Purina.Bow Wow!! I have never been able to eat a burger from there since the snot burger incident out here.

you're not a cop, are you? what do you have to worry about?

No just neurotic every since I saw that most disgusting acts caught on tape show,I check out the resturant report on a local news site to see how they are rated by the board of health now. If I do go out to eat,I check out the bathroom before I order and if it,s dirty looking,I,m gone.

I confess-----I'm a hoarder.And I'm proud of it. We have no Jack-in-the-Box's in Lousiana,so I have to cross the state line into Texas to acquire their culinary delights.That's just plain and simple brain food.The food of Gods.So I stock up on those tasty 2/99 tacos, whenever I cross the line-----I know they hate to see me coming-----because I order 40 tacos[no lettuce] xtra sauce, and bring them home and freeze them.I keep a close eye on them,because I don't want to share,and do frequent spot inventories, so I can see who in my family looks guilty.They have tried all kind of clever ways to outwit me,even resorting to stuffing the empty taco wrappers with paper towels and kinda bunching them up under the few remaining tacos.Its not easy being a mom,sometimes.

shit. i used to do that with mcdonald's cheeseburgers when they had "cheap ass cheeseburger" day. except they wouldn't last long. because i'm a stoner.

Even the finest resturants, I'm sure, are pretty nasty. I managed to avoid working in food service all my life, and plan to. But the stories I hear...

every restaurant is full of cockroaches no matter how expensive of apparently clean they are. but i think we've all become really prissy about food and cleanliness- we're so spoiled really. being picky about what you get to eat is such a luxury. anyone read, who is it, m.f.k. fisher? didn't people used to use spice and salt to cover the taste of rotting meat?

I worked the back line in a Hardees during junior high. You don't want to know more. Anyone for sushi?

if you use enough spice in food preparation it will arrest spoilage. make 3 bowls of bean dip - one with just beans, one with jalepenos in it, the other lots of crushed garlic. seal them up in some small plastic containers and put them in the fridge for a few months. the straight bean container will be moldy but the other two will be dryed-out but fine. that's why people put tabasco on oysters or wasabe on sushi. no harmful micro-organism can survive a dab of wasabe.

wasabe does not kill parasites

After all, Anisakis is living in your stomach lining. That's an extremely acidic environment. Wasabe is nothing compared to a bit of hydrochloric acid. Anisakis would would make a lovely girl's name in Lithuania.

markus posted while i was writing that, so i didn't see the parasite thing. i really did see something on a cooking show about that tabasco and wasabe killing germs - as in single-celled creatures. might be wrong for all i know, but a taste of wasabe makes it easy to believe. yeesh.

why just lithuania? tell us about hardees (please and thank you)

Yeah, I'm multicellular, and it would probably kill me. Before disclosure of Hardee's-related anecdotes, you'll have to sign and return the affidavit that you had no intention of eating fast food again even before I told you about Davey and the special sauce.

i do not intend to eat fast food -heather

Yuck. *sticks out tongue* I liked sushi before I read that. All worms wierd me out. I know that there are many little organisms living in me, but I really don't like hearing about them.

I say sushi is safe fast food for 2 reasons; 1. Assuming you're buying from a REPUTABLE establishment/sushi grade salmon/tunas/etc. are of a much higher quality than the shit you buy in yr avg. supermarket fish dept. 2. Everyone hears horror stories of people getting e coli from a fast food joint or local diner/restaurant. I personally got very ill after eating at a mcDonald's several years ago & have not eaten at one since. Yet despite those problems/these places still remain in business. But have you ever heard of anyone getting sick from a sushi shop in yr area? Or any sushi shop in a major city/for that matter? Sushi chefs have specialized training. They can tell just from appearance if a piece of fish is fresh & in good condition. And becuz it's raw/they can't 'hide' contaminated or spoiled product by deep-frying it or somthering it w/sauces, etc. The nature of the cuisine pretty much requires the best quality, freshest fish available. That's why I think sushi is generally safe. So long as you know who the sushi chef is.

Besides the usual stuff dropped on the floor, unsanitary conditions, general notniceness that you get when your workforce is teenagers and/or from a previous life where sanitation was the sewage ditch along the road, there was Davey. We were both 16, in ninth grade, and working at the Hardee's across the street from the junior high school. I was a geeky kid, but Davey.....Davey made me look like the captain of the football team. He was on close terms with acne, had the braces in full regalia mode, and appeared to dress himself in the dark. Davey was infatuated with Cheryl, one of the cheerleaders and the daughter of the high school gym teacher. Cheryl, of course, didn't mind this, because she was unaware that anyone fitting Davey's DNA profile existed in the known solar system. I had to hear about this obsession all summer long as we slaved over the hot grill. She would come in about once a week with some of her friends, and he'd wet himself peering through the rack as they ordered. He was rendered useless, leaving me to make all the burgers. This time, however, was different. He actually told me he wanted to make her burger; in fact, he made me promise not to make it while he disappeared around the corner, leaving me to slide the other cheerleaders' food across to the girl working the front line, and make up the excuse that Cheryl's was cooking and would be just another minute. Just then Davey whips around the corner from the back room, redfaced and out of breath, clutching a bun. He slapped a patty on it, put on the rest of the ingredients, wrapped it, and yelled to the girl, "Special order." She gave it to Cheryl while Davey watched intently. He was kind of jerky and absentminded the rest of the shift. I don't know what you expect me to say at this point. There was no way in hell I was going to ask him what that was all about. But it did take me about five years before I ate fast food again after leaving Hardee's.

also, if you look behind him, and you see a stuffed puffer fish, forgetting exact name, the poisonous spikey fucker, that means they are qualified to prepare a potentially deadly fish. I have found the japanese, men anyway, to be like little boys when it comes to eating. They dare you to eat the nastiest thing served....i always tell em to fuck off, that i don't play their silly dare games, besides, the thought of raw fish makes me sick. i don't trust the waters in which these fuckers come from. as matter fact, all of seafood can go to hell.....shit stinks to high heaven.

Fugu.

ENCORE! damn, markus. that was some funny shit.

It never occurred to me before now what the essential difference between American cheese and other cheese was. It all seems so obvious now. Nate, have you got Hot'n'Now out there? 39 cent burgers all the time, not very good, but fast as hell. You can't make special orders because it slows them down. That was a stoner food of choice back in college, as well as the Rocket burger, which was one of those monster burgers as big as your plate.

Markus, did Davey masturbate onto Cheryl's hamburger, or do I just have a filthy mind?

I actually know someone who died from parasites obtained from eating improperly prepared seafood. It was a long and painful demise.Years of going to doctors,with severe lung problems,but no one could find the problem.On autopsy,they discovered that her lungs were severly infested with parasites. Another handy tidbit of info: There is a small,almost microscopic catfish that lives in the rivers of South America,called urinophelus[I'll have to check the spelling]. This dasderdly fish swims up the urethra of unsuspecting males,swimming in the rivers.The problem is that when they try to swim back out,like while the guy is urinating,the anotomical structure of the urethra prevents this. Like all catfish they have "stingers" on their whiskers and it becomes excruciatingly painful to the guy.So they stay in the bladder,I guess stinging on a random basis.Another good reason to use protection.

Gee, I'm shocked at how your mind works. That sort of thing has no place here at sorabji.com. Please review the terms of use again, and flagellate yourself until these filthy thoughts leave your head.

oh man, gee, that's nasty. i've never heard of either of those burger joints. you have In & Out burgers out there? eh? HUH? DO YOU? now fuck off.

Actually, that fish is called Vandellia, and is a member of a family of South American parasitic catfish called Trichomycteridae. Its non-scientific name is Candiru. It homes in on the urine of both men and women becuase it's a parasite of the gill chambers of larger fish, and that's where they excrete their urea. An 1897 report stated that the only way to prevent the fish from reaching the bladder was to immediately amputate the penis (in males of course). In 1911, a US Naval Surgeon stated that he performed 3 surgeries to remove a cnadiru. This was all in an article in the sept. 1999 issue of Fortean Times.

The candiru is also known as the toothpick fish. Obligatory literary refence: Redmond O'Hanlon discusses it in his book In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon. He even makes a protective device for himself. He also reports that the locals say that it is found in the ears, nose, arse, and "pinga" of corpes pulled from the Amazon.

tonight I'm supposed to buy fried chicken for a guy I hate. I'm going over to my friend's house. we are going to eat sushi. she asked me to pick up some fried chicken for her asshole husband. I'm trying to think of somewhere convenient to pick up really cheap and gross fried chicken. if I believed the kfc story, I'd go there.

Get him fried chicken from a hole-in-the-wall Chinese take-out place. That shit's nasty.

Erratum: In our Feb. 4 item on the candiru, "corpes" was erroneously typed instead of "corpses". We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

Not to mention the misspelling of Candiru in my post. But then, I don't give a fuck.

I think that was a "yes". on both parts.