Origins: Every
fast food chain gets its own urban legend these days, from claims
of worms in McDonald's hamburgers to roaches in Taco Bell tacos to
snakes in Burger King's ball pits, we're determined to demonize
corporate purveyors of cheap, industrial food products. It appears
to be KFC's turn in the spotlight again (their original legend
about the fried rat having become a bit long in the tooth), and
they have become the proud owners of a legend intended to reflect
another modern fear: genetically engineered food.
Versions of this legend have been circulating for several years
now, as indicated by the e-mail's reference to Kentucky Fried
Chicken's "recent" name change, an event that occurred 1991.
Earlier versions of the tale featured six-legged chickens ("How do
they taste?" "Dunno; no one's ever been able to catch one") or
birds so plumped by chemicals that their gigantic breasts made it
impossible for them to keep their balance well enough to
walk.
It's easy to see why this legend has suddenly made such a strong
resurgence. Our continual progress in understanding and
manipulating the genetic codes of plants and animals has fueled
debate over the environmental and health concerns raised by the
creation and growth of transgenic food crops (which is challenged
by the National Academy of Sciences in a 14 September 2001 article)
and the marketing of food products derived from animals that have
been given artificial hormones. Additionally, to those who already
feel that our killing and eating other animals is morally wrong,
this legend highlights the complete disregard most humans hold for
the rights of animals and the increasingly inhumane conditions
under which food animals are raised. "The government that's
supposed to be looking out for our health and safety doesn't really
care about us" theme also makes an appearance here: a private
company has supposedly created a genetically altered form of an
animal that is raised and eaten by the hundreds of millions every
year, and all the government has done about the situation is to
require them to stop using the word 'chicken' to describe this
product?
Nothing like the Frankensteinian laboratory scenario described here
is taking place, however. Raising chickens that have been
genetically modified so that they are born without beaks, feathers,
or feet, or with additional legs is still beyond the reach of
modern science for the time being (although selective breeding has
been used to enhance some features, such as breast size), nor did
the University of New Hampshire perform a "study of KFC." As well,
the claims about Kentucky Fried Chicken's name change are easily
belied:
Links on KFC's web site (such as the About KFC page clearly
describe its product as "chicken" numerous times, something it
could hardly get away with if the government were prohibiting the
company from using that word. And the KFC web site can also be
reached through the domain name kentuckyfriedchicken.com.
KFC no more raises its own chickens than McDonald's maintains vast
herds of beef cattle to turn into hamburgers or the International
House of Pancakes farms huge tracts of wheat to use in making
pancakes. These companies are in the restaurant business, not the
agricultural or farming business, and they buy their food products
from the same suppliers as everyone else. None of these chains
could possibly operate the enormous facilities that would be
required to supply themselves with all the raw food products they
needed. KFC sells the equivalent of 736 million chickens annually.
They'd have to own some monstrously huge "chicken farms" in order
to supply themselves with well over half a billion chickens every
year. (As well, KFC is but one component of Tricon, a corporation
that also includes the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains of
restaurants. All of these outlets serve chicken and obtain their
supplies through the same sources, which would require Tricon to
operate an even more massively huge series of "mutant chicken"
farms to keep its restaurants fully supplied.)
Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to change its name to KFC in 1991
for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with
governmental regulations about mutant animals:
A move to de-emphasize "chicken" because KFC planned to offer a
varied menu that included other types of food. (The Boston Chicken
corporation took the same approach for the same reason, changing
their name of its retail food outlets to Boston Market.)
A desire to eliminate the word "fried," which has negative
connotations to the increasingly health-conscious consumer
market.
A recent trend towards the abbreviation of long commercial titles,
as demonstrated by other companies' employing shortened forms of
their names, such as The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and
Howard Johnson's (HoJo).
How concerned we should be about genetically engineered food
products is one thing, but no amount of concern or protest is going
to "make KFC start using real chicken again" "real chicken" is
what they've been using all along.
