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Everybody’s been talking about the new KFC Double Down, the sandwich that epitomizes American deep-fried decadence. In lieu of bread, the sandwich uses two pieces of battered or grilled chicken breasts to hold together two slices of bacon, two slices of cheese and a mayonnaise-based sauce. Stephen Colbert called the concoction, “The warped creation of a syphilitic brain,” but then one bite later said, “Call me crazy but this is good.” It’s been getting huge press and I’m sure sales among carnivorous stoners have been brisk but how obscene is it really?

Fast food tester: my dream job
Consumer Reports said it was salty and with 1380 mg of sodium (half of your recommended daily intake), it is. But surprisingly – for the fast food world – it’s not off-the-charts fattening. It has the same number of calories as a Big Mac (540) and about the same amount of fat (32 grams vs. the Big Mac’s 29).
Leftover prop from a David Cronenberg film 
There’s a worse culprit I learned of thanks to snippets.com. The Claim Jumper franchise, whose 45 restaurants are scattered throughout the West Coast and some of the Midwest, offers Beef Back Ribs on their menu that pack in a stunning 4,301 calories and 7,623 mg of sodium. That’s without sides.
In-N-Out's chef d'oeuvre - 4x4 animal style (a mere 1,050 calories)
Even on the road trip where I ate an In-N-Out 4x4 and a Double Double (essentially 6 patties, 6 slices of cheese), I didn’t reach half the caloric value of those ribs. They must be awesome! (Yelp members have informed me that, in fact, they range from “good” and “better than average” to “underdone” and “dry…been on the desert floor for years”)
This is more fattening than the 4x4
But there are other items on the Claim Jumper menu if ribs aren’t your jam. There are 19 items that contain over 2,000 calories and 57 that have over 1,000. Feeling peckish? Just have the blue cheese wedge salad and the seared ahi appetizer. That’s 1,114 calories in the salad plus 562 for the app. The tuna has more calories than a KFC Double Down.
This + 400 calories = Claim Jumper appetizer
So the question is, would I go to the Claim Jumper? Would I have a Double Down? Nah. For me, there is no novelty in eating thousands of calories in one sitting. I do plenty of that at home.