Yesterday was the official release day for the KFC Double Down nation-wide, and bloggers everywhere had a field day.  They are universally reporting that - the primary overwhelming taste is "salt."  Mixed with "fried."  

The Double Down, if you've missed the disgusting news, is basically a club sandwich with two fried chicken breasts instead of bread.  The Consumerist dubs it "the bacon sandwich on fried chicken bread."  In between those chicken breasts, KFC has tucked bacon, cheese, and a mystery sauce.  Hurf!

Lucky for the rest of us, the Vegansaurus crew has spent their time wisely.  They have engineered a vegan version of the Double Down, which apparently manages to be just as delicious, but only a tiny fraction as bad for you.

Their procedure is basically to batter and deep fry a pair of Gardein mock chicken burger patties, then tuck mock bacon and vegan cheese inside.  What elevates this effort beyond just being a silly blog joke is that they take the time to concoct a version of the "special sauce," and that they have included a vegan version of the "eleven secret herbs and spices."

You use the eleven herbs and spices in the coating on the patties, and I can practically smell the result from here!  I find the idea of coating Gardenburgers with KFC spices and deep frying them to be as deeply wrong as it is intriguing and potentially delicious.  

This is also an excellent example of how "vegan isn't necessarily healthier than regular food"!  For certain values of "regular food," of course.  I looked up the nutritional information for a real Double Down sandwich, and was surprised that it wasn't worse.  540 calories and 32 grams of fat - about the same as a Big Mac.  I'm not sure if that makes the Double Down look better, or the Big Mac look worse.  (It has fewer calories than a Burger King Whopper, which is fairly shameful all around.)

If you elect not to deep fry your Vegan Double Down, according to my math it will cost you 460 calories and 28 grams of fat.  Which again is not terribly different from the original Double Down.  I guess that's probably why it's so delicious!

Of course, if you opt to make a homemade Vegan Double Down, you're getting a much higher quality of protein.  The bacon doesn't come from slaughtering the third most intelligent animal on the planet, and the chicken patties have that delicious "cruelty free" taste.

You're also getting a much better quality of fat.  The fat in the Vegan Double Down comes mainly from canola oil, which is one of the healthiest oils you can eat.  Canola oil actually has several health benefits.  You probably shouldn't eat quite that much of it all at once very often, but its health effects are negligible.

By comparison, the fat in the KFC Double Down is all from animal sources.  That would be saturated fat, the kind that can kill you quite, quite dead.  Saturated fat has no health benefits, and it clogs your arteries and raises your cholesterol level.  

Which pretty much explains why, after the KFC Double Down destroys all meat eaters on the planet, vegetarians and vegans shall rule the world.

Image copyright Vegansaurus