With great fanfare, Burger King recently introduced “Satisfries” — a new crinkle-cut french fry that it claims is much lower in fat and calories:
And they are also running commercials making the same claims:
If you look a little closer, you will see there is one tiny asterisk after the 40% less fat claim, and two asterisks after the 30% less [sic] calories claim. The fine print in the commercial is virtually unreadable.
*MOUSE PRINT:
They are not actually comparing the new Satisfries to their own regular fries as most people would believe, but rather to McDonald’s regular fries.
*MOUSE PRINT:
While Burger King’s claims are roughly mathematically correct when you compare equal size portions of their Satisfries to McDonald’s regular fries, BK’s claims exaggerate the calorie and fat reductions when you compare the actual sizes of products you can buy in each restaurant.
Comparing the actual smallest portion you can buy of BK’s Satisfries, which weighs 87 grams, with McDonald’s small size fries which weighs only 71 grams, the BK Satisfries has 27% less fat (not 40% less) and 17% fewer calories (not 30%).
But how do Satisfries compare to BK’s own regular fries, since most people hearing the claim will believe that is the comparison being made?
When you compare the smallest size of BK’s Satisfries (87 grams) with their own virtually equal-sized regular fries (89 grams), Satisfies are only 20% less fatty (not the 40% seemingly claimed), and have 21% fewer calories, not 30%.
I think its fair to count them on a per gram (serving size) basis. If you count them based on the smallest portion available they will never match up because people don’t get the same amount in fries each time.
It’s more important to compare BK fries to BK fries. On a per serving basis BK Satisfries have 30% less fat and 20% fewer calories than regular BK fries.
Perhaps BK wanted to make larger percentage claims and noticed an opportunity to use McDonald’s numbers instead. It’s still impressive that Satisfries have less fat and calorie content than McD’s fries at a lower serving.
I’m surprised they didn’t just boldly say they had 40% less fat and 30% less calories than McDonald’s fries right in their ad.
Well I had those fries once and my biggest complaint was that the price of the “Satisfries†was more expensive than the regular fries.
They are still lower in fat an calories then their regular fries which is a good thing though, but I agree with Max though.. Why not say just boldly say they had 40% less fat and 30% less calories than McDonald’s fries right in their ad.
The taste isn’t worth the fat savings.
I tried them when they first came out in my area, I wasn’t impressed. I love crinkle cut fries but the two times I tried them they were undercooked. I generally do not pay attention to calorie counts and fat contents when I eat at ‘fast food’ places because I only eat ‘fast food’ a few times a year (3 or 4).
An interesting observation about the Burger King nutrition numbers: Comparing their “value” fries to the “Satisfries,” the serving size drops from 89 to 87 grams (2% drop) but the total carbohydrate drops from 34 to 28 calories (18% drop). That carb (plus the 2 gram fat drop) are probably responsible for the 21% drop in calories (from 240 to 190), but how did they reduce carbs by 6 grams when the serving size only dropped 2 grams? They didn’t replace it with protein (no change) and the fat content dropped. It seems, apparently, that they replaced 4 grams of potato with water. I wouldn’t consider this dishonest. Rather, it may be a good way to reduce calories if you’re going to eat French fries. But do the fries still taste good enough to want to eat them?
Bottom line? They taste like cardboard.