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IPFS News Link • Food

Make no mistake: Burger King's vaunted 'real food' burger without additives will still K

• https://www.rt.com, Helen Buyniski

The chain unveiled an ad earlier this week, showing time-lapse footage of a Whopper growing moldy over a month to tout the removal of artificial preservatives from its signature item. 

With health-conscious consumers shying away from the unchecked gluttony Burger King and its ilk once celebrated – remember the Carl's Jr. "thickburger," the cheeseburger that somehow included a hot dog and potato chips in the burger, and KFC's "DoubleDown," the bacon and cheese sandwich in which fried chicken is used instead of bacon? – fast-food chains are having an existential crisis.

Ads like this are designed to misdirect, to make the consumer feel virtuous for choosing Burger King while distracting them from the fact that they're still eating a fat- and cholesterol-heavy slab of processed meat and probably washing it down with a tub of high-fructose corn syrup, taking one more step toward joining the 71 percent of Americans who are overweight. While a Whopper has "only" about 660 calories, that's still more than a fourth of what the average adult requires daily, and it doesn't include the fries and soda. The combination of high fat, high cholesterol and sugar is especially deadly in a country where heart disease is among the top three killers.