skizziks

I did a search of the forums, didn´t find this anywhere, so if it´s a repost or already been done, my apologies, just delete it...

Perhaps you have seen that KFC commercial that says you cannot cook a chicken dinner under $10, and so you should just go to KFC. I hate that commercial.

Well, it is proved wrong right here:

How I beat KFC's 'family meal' challenge | By Kurt Michael Friese | Grist | Chef's Diary | 30 Oct 2008

The sad thing is, most people will see the commercial and think KFC is correct, be too lazy to actually do the shopping and comparing and figuring out of stuff, and succumb to the evil temptation and lure of fast food.

Frosstbyte

So, in exchange for a 20-30 minute shopping trip and 20-30 minutes of prep time, you save $2.50.

KFC please.

Seems I was wrong, 1 hr-1:15 of prep time.


So, my response was a little curt. I see the point, and I see why KFC's meal is absolutely terrible for you and they're cruel to chickens and whatever else. I don't dispute that eating KFC does not promote the platonic ideal of healthy eating and I don't dispute that they're being somewhat disingenuous by suggesting that you can have a "nice family meal" from KFC for $10 that you can't get from the store for the same amount.

KFC is not a nice family meal. It's fast food. It's made based with ingredients from the lowest bidder.

But, at the same time, it's fast food. I can walk into a KFC and have that meal ready to eat in 10 minutes for $10. 20 minutes on an awful night with shitty service. In no conceivable universe can you make the meal that dude outlines in 10 minutes. It misses the point entirely of why someone would eat at KFC in the first place, and therefore is just as disingenuous as KFC's ad.

genuinegirly

Will most people see the commercial and see it as a reason to give up? I'd rather think that the majority of Americans can see this as a challenge, and make it for even less than the chef you mention.

My mom would make meals like this all the time when we were kids. Always turned out less greasy and more healthy than KFC. Since she would purchase her chicken on sale and couldn't care less about free-range grain-fed healthy chickens, she probably made the meal for less than two bucks. Even cheaper when we raised those hens in our backyard.

We'd still get KFC for the church family picnic every year. It was always a special treat.

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aberkok

Wow! You can save money by cooking at home!!!?????

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genuinegirly

Yes, a truly novel idea. I like your Fallout avatar, Aberkok.

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rmarshall

I like shake and bake.

Not the expensive store bought shake and bake, but cheap bread crumbs mixed with salt and lots of pepper and oregano and mustard powder and anything else I feel like throwing in there. Get a used grocery bag from the used grocery bag drawer (you DO save them, right?) and put the bread crumb mixture in there.

Preheat oven to 300-320. Take a bowl and whisk up an egg and a couple of cups of water. Cutup a chicken into 9 or 10 pieces, dunk in the water-egg and shake in the bag until well coated. Lay out on a big baking pan. I have one that has a grill so the fat drains off. Better than having the chicken sitting in a lake of fat! Frying is too much work!

While it's in the oven for an hour or so, boil up some new potatoes or lesser quality potatoes that you've peeled and can mash. Or, make KD. Teenagers can make KD while you go back to the Tilted forum on the computer. Put the timer on! Don't forget some niblets corn. Forget the gravy. Just put margarine and salt and pepper on the potatoes. The chicken is crispy and spicy. The teenagers love it!

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Baraka_Guru

Don't make me give you a lesson on economies of scale and the division of labour!

But, seriously, KFC is built for affordable convenience. It's not meant to compete with home cooking directly, is it? Besides, I doubt anyone can come close to the Colonel's recipe....

I seriously doubt it.

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ngdawg

7 pieces of chicken??? I buy 8 just for me and the spouse(not KFC, though, that's just nasty), my son will eat at least 2 and my daughter 2 legs. Up to 12 pieces. Granted, I end up taking one for lunch....
If I want to make chicken at home, both Target and Walmart sell frozen breast, about 6-8 per bag for $8 and they're giNORmous pieces.

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Amaras

Ngdawg, and the rest of you, thanks for the ideas. My newly formed family has been eating KFC
maybe 2-3 times a month for years. I've taken over cooking recently while I'm at home. I'm
trying to raise the nutritional value in what we eat, but I'm new to cooking for 5. I'm going to
try a few of these recipes (so far I've been really good at following them) and get back to you
guys.
That should kick KFC in the nuggets.

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aberkok

Don't make me give you a lesson on the economics of health care.

Or on agricultural economics.

A stretch, perhaps, but I think you read me.

Yeah. Recipe... for murder!

What the hell am I doing in a KFC thread!?

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Cynosure

Some things are just not worth cooking at home, and fried chicken is one of them. Not only is it a lot of fuss and bother to prepare and cook, but the clean-up is a bitch.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't care for KFC. My favorite fried chicken is Popeyes.

Jetée

There's always an exception to the rule. But what it comes down to is that most reasonable and potential consumers of fast food weigh the pros and cons of the service to home-cooking, and more often than not, they prefer the "less-mess", quick-solution of ordering out a meal that is savory yet unsalutary for the benefit of the participating family, in which they cheer for chicken and biscuits.
I couldn't tell ya.

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Vigilante

Big Fucking Deal. KFC is good shit, who cares. I'd spend 2.50 if I didn't have to fuck up my kitchen that night. I don't take anything a commercial says as correct, in fact I usually get up or fast forward (if I DVR'd the show) rather than watch a commercial. It's not about truth or not, it's about I don't care. I don't even see it as a challenge; it matters to me about as much as a couple of kids arguing down the street. Just more random noise to ignore.

Additionally, Fross, you are the man LOL.

I wouldn't say it's a kick to KFC's nuts. It's more like a teenage girl through a stick at KFC, and missed.

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stellabella1978

Why would you need to eat chicken at all? Other forms of protein are healthier and cheaper - like red beans and rice. You could get ten meals for $10 that way.

Vigilante

Because I like meat. I eat raw fish too, because I prefer it that way. I eat rare steak, because I like it bloody.

Beans are not healthier. If you were to find the wild-type legume of your choice and eat it off the stalk, it would either make you puke your guts out or kill you. Beans are easy to eat for us because we've bred them down and we know how to cook them, but in a natural setting we would not eat them. Please do not throw facts out like that for which there are no grounds.

"Healthier" is still a subjective term anyways. A few years ago eggs were bad, now they are good....or are they bad again? Maybe avocado is good, or maybe it has cholesterol and is fatty. What about soy? You hear all kinds of crap about soy as well, both good and bad and really bad. Notice that's another legume that we have attempted to dumb down by boiling and processing. The veggie's precious tofu is based on a plant that would kill you in a natural state.

Even general diet is a variable. Some people say we cook meat to make it easier to digest denatured proteins, while others say raw is best for you. Do you really know? Do I really know? Does the average nutritionist with a bachelors really know?

Also, if I'm not mistaken, beans are a different type of protein than meat and cannot sustain humans indefinitely. I know I'm right on the different proteins, that's common sense since bean is not animal, but I do recall some mention of them not being able to sustain a human on an otherwise regular diet. If you ate beans and veggies and all that, but no meat, you would be missing iron and numerous other essentials that you pick up in meat, which is why my wife passed out several times when she tried to be a veggie. She got back on meat and she has been healthy ever since. In fact, even chicken over the long term has made her sick. She gets some steak and goes on a steak craving for weeks. You take supplements on a veggie diet for a reason - BECAUSE IT IS NOT NATURAL ENOUGH TO KEEP YOU ALIVE.

Let me add that if we were meant to eat veggies alone, we would have bovine teeth or similar. Flat with ridges designed to grind. Instead we have omnivore teeth. Grinding at the back and cutting at the front, but still with sharp edges for tearing meat to shreds. That's not shredding broccoli, that's shredding red meat. Our canines are short but they still exist, and as such our natural diet is still omnivorous. Our nearest relative genetically is also omnivorous, with more pronounced canines than we have.

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allaboutmusic

Ermmm, what is KD?

aberkok

Even though this rant is riddled with fallacies like:

a) biology is not a limiter of "what we were meant to eat" just as it is not a limiter of how we build relationships (monogamist vs. polygamist) or societies (rural vs. urban), etc, etc.

b) that because vegetarianism didn't work for your wife it doesn't work at all

c) iron in meat.... do you think that comes from space? no, it comes from plants

I could go on, but my MAIN point is that this is not what the thread is about. That goes for the question "why not eat beans?" as well.

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thingstodo

Actually beans are a great form of protein. The human diet needs a very minimal amount of animal protein - say a playing card deck size once a week. Your digestive tract isn't made for large quantities of meat. It takes longer to digest the meat which can lead to colon cancer.

I disagree that cooking is akin to processing in today's vernacular. Processing robs food of it's nutritional value while proper cooking can extually enhance nutritional value.

Soy is good if it is fermented, thus soy milk or soy protein isn't as good for you unless you are going through menopause and then the estrogen helps with hot flashes.

I hardly eat meat these days other than fish, which I like grilled or sashimi grade.

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Amaras

KD is Kraft Dinner.

Threadjacked, answered, and back again to the OP, right?
Anytime KFC is mentioned, it's almost inevitable the means of chicken raising will be mentioned. The devolution into meat versus vegan is just a hop, skip and a jump away. I eat meat, it's a conscious decision. I might not know all about the reasons not to, but I know vegans have a fairly good point.
Aberkok, under tilted food, why don't you start a vegan recipes thread?
I've heard the same thing from our local science guru, Dr. Joe Schwartz. I like his approach, balanced, not given to hyperbole, and based on best evidence. He's quite moderate in his suggestions.

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Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
-Noam Chomsky
Love is a verb, not a noun.
-My Mom
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later.
-Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

mrklixx

Back to the OP.

The concept of the commercial is that you can't walk into a grocery store and buy all of the ingredients for under $10.

The "challenge beater" only calculates the amount of ingredients he uses, not how much he had to initially purchase.

None of the grocery stores around here have bulk items (other than maybe coffee and candy), and even the most "bulk ridden" store I know of doesn't have bulk liquids.

So using his own figures (except potatoes, which he left out) it comes out to:

4.76 Chicken
1.95 Lard
1.73 Baking Powder
2.37 Sugar
1.40 Flour
0.63 Salt
0.69 Baking Soda
2.19 Butter
1.99 Milk
2.50 Potatoes

20.21

That doesn't even factor in any spices (other than salt), which can be very pricey.

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RangerJoe

I would rather spend $20 at KFC and get a bucket of good crispy chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits and have two nights of dinner for my son and I than waste ten dollars at the store on chicken I'm going to fuck up on anyways.

Trust me, I tried it.

roachboy

fried chicken is not that big a deal to make---you just have to make sure the oil's hot enough before you put the chicken in. if the oil's spattering all over the place, you're probably using a skillet without sides.

but don't go by me: i like to cook. i really dislike kfc--if i were going to check fried chicken at a fast food joint, i'd go for popeye's. but i hardly ever do it.

but then again, i'm not cooking for alot of people, which i expect changes things.

o yeah--the arguments above against being vegetarian are absurd. maybe another thread sometime.

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rmarshall

Maybe if you tried cooking more, you get better at it. Anyway, we live in the country, about 45 minutes from town. We occasionally bring a bucket of KFC home. I also bring home Swiss Chalet rotisserie chicken. There is something addictive about them.

But, living in the country, we couldn't survive on takeout alone. We have to cook. I enjoy doing it, and, since I'm currently unemployed, it's the least I can do.

I thought KD (Kraft dinner) was universal. I prefer real macaroni elbows and grated cheese, but KD is easier for teenagers to figure out and less messy for me to cleanup.

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RangerJoe

I'm kind of confused on whether or not this was supposed to come across as being rude. I'll say it wasn't. Less trouble that way. (;

Some people can cook, some people can't. I'm one of those that can't, no matter how hard I try. Now, baking is another story.

new man

For frying, get yourself a deep oil fryer and keep it in the garage. I use peanut oil or vegetable oil in mine. The basket lifts out with the lid still on which controls splatters. When I want to use it, I bring it outside, plug it in, leave it for ten minutes to heat up. By the way, when cooking french fries, put the fries in for a few minutes. The temp will drop, which starts to make the fries oil soaked and less crispy. Let the oil heat back up to 365 f, then place fries back in for a few minutes. Cost of oil: it is reusable for many cookings.

As for the vegetarian anti protein eater, the body needs a lot more protein than a handful a week for optimal performance, especially factoring in any form of exercise. even by the US govt's low lowest common denominator standards that also has to acct for 100 lb grandmothers, 3 oz a day is recommended. About 65 grams. Whey protein concentrate and eggs are the most bioavailable, followed by meat. It is a lot harder to get complete proteins from vegetable sources, because we do not have digestive tracts like herbivores. I have one stomach, not 7. Also, to get a complete load of 65 grams of protein, covering all the essential amino acids, would require about 2000 calories of beans and rice. Happy eating. Don't forget that many amino acids have been classified as quasi essential. For example, glutamine needs rise significantly when the body is under stress, like disease, exercise, or low calorie periods.

percy

Maybe the KFC is better in the US, but in Canada it is so unbearable I would rather starve than eat that shit. Totally gross

I do like their french fries though

aberkok

Sorry mods, you'll have to deal with me I guess but I can't let this slide:

First of all, nobody here is anti-protein. I am a vegan and I completed a half-marathon in under 2 hours. I do resistance training and when it is my goal, am able to build muscle mass.

There are meat and dairy industry lobbies.

So I eat more. Woe is me. Besides, you might want to check your sums. And no one is suggesting that you get your entire daily protein requirement from one source. As for the complete protein idea, veggies rarely have complete protein, but guess what - eat numerous incomplete plant based protein sources over the course of the day and voila - you get all the amino acids you need. I could eat "4" or I could eat "2+2."

The silliest part of the anti-vegan mindset is that "meat contains this" or "meat contains that," as if the animal never ate anything and it just became nutritious on its own. Well that animal ate plants. There are minerals in its body from the soil which grew the plants it ate!

I get it. Veganism isn't for everyone, but it is for a lot more people than would care to admit it, and it's worked wonders for me.

Alright I am done being off-topic. Even if Ustwo comes in here.

Grolsch, I will start that vegan recipe thread.

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Baraka_Guru

---

-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- Let's keep this about the cost of making fried chicken vs. buying it prepared. Vegetarianism has nothing to do with this unless you have a great recipe for fried chicken analogues. If you have a beef with planteaters, find an appropriate outlet on another thread. If you find yourself slighted by meatlovers, do the same. Now back to finger-lickin' good.

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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snowy

If you can bake, you can cook. Good cookbooks help a LOT. So does practice. Cooking does take technique, but technique can be learned and practiced, just as cooking method can be learned and practiced (and then expanded upon). There are plenty of cooking shows on television that show what good technique is, and there are cookbooks that demonstrate it (for instance, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics. And if you don't have cable television, these cooking shows are easily found on the Internet, and the cookbooks are available at the library (I recommend Joy of Cooking, anything by Mark Bittman, and Cookwise by Shirley Corriher, especially if you like to bake, as Shirley goes into the science behind the method).

Anyone can cook if they're willing to learn and if they're willing to put the effort into cooking. Now, I understand that fried chicken is an intimidating dish, but there is an easy alternative: Roast it. You don't even need a roasting pan. All you need is an oven, a decent meat thermometer (for safety reasons), and a cast iron skillet.

But we wouldn't take this challenge in my household, simply because my SO is vegetarian, and I don't cook meat at home. As to luciferase's comments about vegetarianism: I am a proud omnivore, and I enjoy a good steak being such, but vegetarianism is a way of life with a number of health benefits, not to mention the comfort one has knowing they're not contributing to the confined animal feeding operation racket. When I do eat meat, I choose it conscientiously because I don't want to continue to promote the CAFO system (KFC uses CAFOs to raise their chickens and/or buys chickens raised in a CAFO). The environmental effects of such operations are profound; such CAFOs create enormous amounts of pollution and waste that must be dealt with. We get by eating a significant amount of legumes in our diet, and neither my SO or I have had any problems with protein deficiency or anemia.

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rmarshall

I certainly didn't mean to be rude. If I did, I'm so sorry.

I really can't add to what onesnowyowl said. Making toast is a little more difficult than making a cup of tea. Boiling water can't get hotter than 212F. If the toast burns, you learn and turn the knob for next time. Making cookies is slightly more difficult. You also have to set the rack at the right level in the oven. You screwup, then you learn for next time. Burning is always the problem. You can usually cook more, but you can't unburn food!

I just hate to think how many people "think" they're useless and don't even try.

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new man

Yes, we must return to the meat of the subject of the original post. One of the reasons that the original recipe is so darn moist and delicious is that KFC is deep and pressure fried. The theory is that the pressure prevents some of the moisture from escaping so that the meat is steamed from the inside as well as fried. This thread has inspired me however to try making my own fried chicken in my fryer. It seems that every KFC feels dirty and their service is subpar compared to other fine dining fast food establishments.

But if anyone ever wants to debate the benefits of the vegetarian vs omnivore diet please feel free to dig one one of the many old threads that I am sure exist or start a new one. I will be happy to debate you there.

thingstodo

Perhaps I missed it but all the food prep comments neglected to include the cost of energy to prepare the food with heat, to light the room and to clean up after. Not to mention the tools required to do the cooking even if they are items you already have since you would need to amortize the depreciation over the cooking life of the equipment. Then there is the waste factor if you eat in the restaurant vs. at home.
-----Added 9/11/2008 at 10 : 37 : 43-----
Who wouldn't you want to eat more if you can? If you gain much of your protein from plant sources you accompany the protein intake with a great deal of soluable and unsoluable fiber. That helps protect your colon and even better, keeps things moving if you know what I mean.

I get protein from fish, beans, milk, cheese, eggs (all which are natural, non-processed, free range and organic) - I could go on. The point is that there are many sources.

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jewels

The first time, the cost might be higher to make it at home. But by the second time, you're ahead of the game. The oil, baking powder, sugar, flour, salt and other seasonings are paid for, in your spice rack/cabinet.

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Jimellow

You could probably catch, slaughter, and dress your own chicken at a minimal cost, but convenience generally costs money.

It's interesting that someone pursued the validity of an advertising claim. I'd argue that very little advertising is based on factual data at all.

I don't think it's a matter of not having the time as much as it's a result of people wanting to spend their time doing other things. And people ate at restaurants, inns, and other established dining locations back in the day as well.

I think the writer should have just admitted it will take more time without trying to justify why cooking at home is ideal to buying KFC. That introduces a slew of other issues that aren't really related to the core topic being discussed; unless he'd like to turn it into an essay comparing the cultural, social, and economical issues of today with those prior to the 20th century and why they ultimately result in home cooking being ideal to KFC, or vice versa.

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MSD

My approximate summary of the 11 herbs and spices:

1-2: sugar
3-6: salt
7-11: MSG


I read an article by someone who had decent chemical analysis equipment checked it out a few years ago, and those were the only 3 ingredients they found.

snowy

Best ingredient ever, you know. Everyone loves monosodium glutamate.

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Baraka_Guru

That's the magic of the recipe! Its secret is kept by the fact that the cooking process leaves only those byproducts.

That and flavour!

It can't be reverse engineered. The Colonel was a genius!

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Vigilante

Indeed. I love tanking up on about 3 gallons of water later too, just to compensate for the sodium effect LOL

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We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

smooth

if you guys want a fast but somewhat healthier experience, then every supermarket I've been to has some sort of pre-made whole chicken for ~$5.99. They have the slaw and mashed taters & gravy, too. my wife loves KFC, but I had the distinct "advantage" of working there for a couple years...we compromise with the grocery store for reasons obvious to anyone who has ever operated behind the counter at KFC.

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MSD

I probably won't win any friends by saying this (note to self: ask for a checkbox that I can use to automatically preface my posts with that,) but MSG is awesome and makes damn near anything taste better.

This should not be taken to imply that I actually add it to food,but if it's there I'm 100% in favor of it.