Oprah: you are a fraud

This is such a disappointment.  And there are so many things to this story that need to be addressed.

Oprah Winfrey has partnered up with KFC to promote their new grilled chicken dinner by giving away free meals.  I don’t know where to begin, in all honesty, because so much of this is wrong.

First off, promoting something as unhealthy as KFC by a woman who has a show on about health, child obesity, and her own obesity nearly every week, it seems that someone might not have thought this through.

KFC is promoting this as a healthy, UNfried version of their Original Recipe.  However, when you look at the nutritional information provided on the website, it is still not the healthiest alternative.  In fact, it is less healthy that getting the Original Recipe and taking off the breading and skin.  The other thing to note is this little trick of deception: the serving size is listed in grams.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t bring a scale with me when I go out to eat.  And, most places would either try to figure out the per piece nutritional value or, at the very least, tell you how many grams an average piece weighs.  For example, the serving size of the chicken breast is 119grams which is the equivalent to 4 ounces, or the size of your palm.  So, if you are eating any more than that amount, the “health” benefits of the grilled chicken are null.

Now, let’s talk about the term: chicken.  Here is how KFC has listed chicken, this time from its ingredient list.

Chicken, Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate Seasoned with: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken
Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added as Anticaking Agents. Contains Wheat and Soy.

I have always liked my chicken made from beef fat.  Yum.

But, please keep in mind, this is what the chicken contains.  This is not the ingredients for a meal… this is the chicken.  I always thought chicken was just chicken.  But, at KFC, it is almost 26 ingredients…. and they haven’t even gotten to the eleven herbs and spices yet.

What Oprah is giving away is not just the chicken, but also two sides and biscuits.  I am not going to spend my time going over each ingredient list.  The bottom line is for someone who is trying to change the collective conscience on nutrition, it is hypocritical to promote such an item.

The second reason this promotion is so horrifying is because just six months ago the show did an expose on factory farms and the cruelty those animals suffer to provide us food.  This site has written about this many times, and you can find another article HERE, about the devastation CAFO’s have brought to us, the animals and the environment.

KFC is notorius for using animals raised in inhumane conditions, specifically farmed by Tyson.  Tyson has been caught on tape torturing animals, and is under investigation for multiple complaints of violations of animal cruelty laws.  Not too mention, it is a partner with Monsanto in creating legislation that will change the food dynamic of this country, in regards to the illegalization of organic products.

For a women who was named PETA’s Celebrity of the Year, I think it is a shame that she is now promoting a company that knowingly and admittingly has tortured animals.

The last reason this is this: disease.  Whether it is human, animal or the environment, the living conditions of how we raise our food is hurting and will kill us and them.  The animals raised in these conditions are sick and filled with antibiotics and hormones.  There is concrete evidence that this condition leads to drug resistant organisms which lead to the possibility of outbreaks like swine flu. (please note, we are aware that this latest ‘pandemic” didn’t amount to much, but that is not to say something like it won’t in the future).

These same conditions are creating an animal, that when we eat it, is a root cause to a national obesity level of 60% and growing.  As a result, we also have an increase in diabetes and other illnesses that are occuring at ever increasing rates.

Lastly, these conditions are hurting the planet.  The CAFO farming method is lethal to this planet via waste run-off, methane gas release, and dead zones in soil.  Elliminating a meat heavy diet just once a day can have lasting effects on the sustainability of this planet.

There are low income families all over this nation that are struggling to get food on the table.  I want to make sure that I am not saying she, or any of you, should not do what you can to help these people.  But they are the same peole that have no access to clean, healthy organic food.  And then, they have no access to good health care from the myriad of diseases causes as a result of their eating habits.

Oprah needs to spend her money and use her name more wisely.  She has created a marketing campaign that re-enforces the belief that healthy eating and organic clean food are for the wealthy and elite; that if you are of a lower income bracket you do not deserve to have the same food priveleges as other Americans.

She easily could have partnered with any other food company that would have gotten the same affect (free food to people in need) with a different effect; that being healthy and eating well, while not harming animals or the planet is the most important message to be passed to future generations.

But she didn’t.

by Shelley Boyle