Puoh Share See's List: KFC Chicken (Genetically Modified Meat Issues)

• KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts.  
  
• First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know. Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we make KFC start using real chicken again.  
   
• Horrible Fact about KFC: 
  
   KFC has been a part of American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts. First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? 
  
   Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. 
  
• IT'S NOT!! 
  
   The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC. 
  
   Because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. 
  
   I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know ..
• Every fast food chain gets its own urban legend these days, from claims of worms in McDonald's hamburgers to roaches in Taco Bell tacos to snakes in     Burger King's ball pits, we're determined to demonize corporate purveyors of cheap, industrial food products. It appears to be KFC's turn in the spotlight again (their original legend about the fried rat having become a bit long in the tooth), and they have become the proud owners of a legend intended to reflect another modern fear: genetically engineered food. 
  
• Versions of this legend have been circulating for several years now, as indicated by the e-mail's reference to Kentucky Fried Chicken's "recent" name change, an event that occurred 1991. Earlier versions of the tale featured six-legged chickens ("How do they taste?" "Dunno; no one's ever been able to catch one") or birds so plumped by chemicals that their gigantic breasts made it impossible for them to keep their balance well enough to walk.
• It's easy to see why this legend has suddenly made such a strong resurgence. Our continual progress  in understanding and manipulating the genetic codes of plants and animals has fueled debate over the environmental and health concerns raised by the creation and growth of transgenic food crops and the marketing of food products derived from animals that have been given      artificial hormones.
• Additionally, to those who already feel that our killing and eating other animals is morally wrong, this legend highlights the complete disregard most humans hold for the rights of animals and the increasingly inhumane conditions under which food animals are raised. "The government that's supposed to be looking out for our health and safety doesn't really care about us" theme also makes an appearance here: a private company has supposedly created a genetically altered     form of an animal that is raised and eaten by the hundreds of millions every year, and all the government has done about the situation is to require them to stop using the word 'chicken' to describe this product? 
  
• Nothing like the Frankensteinian laboratory scenario described here is taking place, however. Raising chickens that have been genetically modified so that they are born without beaks, feathers, or feet, or with additional legs is still beyond the reach of modern science for the time being (although selective breeding has been used to enhance some features, such as breast size), nor did the University of New Hampshire perform a "study of KFC." As well, the claims about Kentucky Fried Chicken's name change are easily belied:
• Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to change its name to KFC in 1991 for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with governmental regulations about mutant animals:  
   
  • A move to de-emphasize "chicken" because KFC planned to offer a varied menu that included other types of food. (The Boston Chicken corporation took the same approach for the same reason, changing the name of its retail food outlets to Boston Market.)
   
   
  • A desire to eliminate the word "fried," which has negative connotations to the increasingly health-conscious consumer market.
   
   
  • A recent trend towards the abbreviation of long commercial titles, as demonstrated by other companies' employing shortened forms of their names, such as The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and Howard Johnson's (HoJo).
   
    How concerned we should be about genetically engineered food products is one thing, but no amount of concern or protest is going to "make KFC start using real chicken again": "real chicken" is what KFC has been using all along. 
  

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• Many of us have heard the urban legend about “Kentucky Fried Chicken” having to change their name to KFC because they didn’t use real chickens, and the government wouldn’t let them falsely advertise that they served real chicken. A friend of mine told me that story in a KFC in a small city, where I used to live, in China. He refused to eat the chicken. I didn’t believe the story. I’m a tough sell. I will put a story like that in a little cloud in my head where it can float around until I have a chance to verify it. Research, for example, established that the story about enterprising Chinese businessmen using a chemical cocktail to convert pork to beef was true.

• I was right about the KFC story, though. I just typed in a few key words and found out from Snopes.com almost instantly that it was a big, fat hoax. It was vaguely gratifying to learn that my sense of reality was in the ballpark. Or so I thought.

   

• Now there’s a new KFC story that hasn’t been debunked yet. It comes from a local Chinese newspaper in Shaanxi Provence, and hasn’t been popularized yet, so there’s nothing in English on the internet about it that I can find. I got the info from a science teacher who worked at a university affiliated with the one I worked at in China, and who I’d met at a social gathering and have kept in contact with. He translated the document for me and sent me the pic. According to the article, a girl named Yang Pei, who worked in a “chicken factory” which raises chickens for KFC in China, had heard rumors that the chickens were mutants. Initially, the girl, who was university educated, didn’t believe the stories of multi-winged, multi-legged, beak-less, featherless freak birds. But over time she began to wonder. Interestingly, the chickens at this facility were off limits to general workers like her, which raised her suspicions. She thought it was extremely unusual that you needed special clearance to see the chickens, when her own family had their own chicken farm and anyone and everyone could come and see the whole process.

   
• One day she got a funny idea, and on a lark she decided to test it. While the workers couldn’t see the actual chickens – though they could hear them – they could on occasion see some of the eggs, which looked no different than the ones from her farm, except that they felt a bit “softer” and more “leathery”. Ostensibly to prove her gullible coworkers (who believed the sensationalist stories) wrong, she waited for an opportunity and then snagged a few of the eggs in transit, and brought them home to combine with a clutch of eggs being brooded by one of her own family’s hens.

• To her surprise, the eggs actually hatched, but the birds that emerged were laden with multiple wings and legs, had only vestigial beaks that were soft, and little or no feathers. They grew extremely quickly and attained the size you can see in the picture after only a few months.

   

• Supposedly, all of the newspapers except a few of the first copies sold have been confiscated, and websites coming out of China publishing the story have been blocked.

   

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• Raising chickens that have been genetically modified so that they are born without beaks, feathers, or feet, or with additional legs is still beyond the reach of modern science for the time being (although selective breeding has been used to enhance some features, such as breast size). Also, the claims about Kentucky Fried Chicken's name change are easily belied:
• Links on KFC's web site (such as kentuckyfriedchicken.com clearly describe its product as "chicken" numerous times, something it could hardly get away with if the government were prohibiting the company from using that word.) KFC sells the equivalent of 736 million chickens annually. They'd have to own some monstrously huge "chicken farms" in order to supply themselves with well over half a billion chickens every year.
• As well, KFC is but one component of Tricon, a corporation that also includes the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains of restaurants. All of these outlets serve chicken and obtain their supplies through the same sources, which would require Tricon to operate an even more massively huge series of "mutant chicken" farms to keep its restaurants fully supplied.
  
• Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to change its name to KFC in 1991 for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with governmental regulations about mutant animals:
   * A move to de-emphasize "chicken" because KFC planned to offer a varied menu that included other types of food.
   *A desire to eliminate the word "fried," which has negative connotations to the increasingly health-conscious consumer market.
   *A recent trend towards the abbreviation of long commercial titles, as demonstrated by other companies' employing shortened forms of their names, such as The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and Howard Johnson's (HoJo).

   

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• Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms.
• These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.
• he government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.

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• The story goes that KFC has had to stop using the word "chicken" to describe its products because they are not actually chicken and have to change it due to a government mandate. This is shown by the fact that KFC changed its name from "Kentucky Fried Chicken" to just "KFC." They suggest that genetically manipulated organisms are instead the replacement for chicken. These are animals being kept alive by tubes to pump blood and nutrients through them. They have modified bones that are smaller, and they have no beaks or feathers. The reason for this organism is that it costs less to produce, and KFC needs to produce a lot of meat for their company to run. The last line generally implores the reader to listen for the word "chicken" in commercials, as they supposedly do not use the word.
• KFC does use the word chicken on its menu and in commercials. You can find it on their website and if you go to a restaurant it will be found all over the place. The de-emphasis on "chicken" in the name, instead going to "KFC," was a marketing decision, and not one handed down by the government. They use real chickens and not modified organisms. They do not raise their own chickens, and rely on third parties for their food supply. There is no technology to make "chicken" in the way proposed in the story, and it is just an urban legend to scare people.

• Although Snopes and a number of other sites have confirmed that KFC still refers to their "products" as chickens, the photographs provided here (via Reuters), show that there is no doubt, genetically-modified chickens have been created in order to increase profits, and lessen the quality of life of the animals used in the food industry.
• First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name?
   Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the “FRIED” food issue.
  
• No not because of FRIED issue
   
   KFC is very Popular all over world. Do they really know what you are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire , they found some very upsetting facts.
• Have you ever seen KFC chicken?
   Do you know why name change Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC.
   
   The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called “chickens” are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC.
  
• They do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing.
• Note: Publisher: Great Mystery Publishing - Though tampering with genetics in such drastic ways as shown by these photographs is not acceptable, these genetically-engineered chickens are still chickens. They are creatures still capable of feeling pain, happiness, sadness, comfort and caring. In Australia, KFC has been promoting their free range chicken line, but this does not negate the terrible and inevitable slaughter that awaits these animals. The sad truth is, even most regular chickens live their shortened lives in horrific, tiny cages, wire beneath their feet, never to feel the softness of grass, or sunlight or breeze upon their skin. Factory farming sacrifices our compassion and integrity in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Factory farming also degrades the environment, and our health, producing poor quality food in such quantities that we eat more than our body requires; resulting in the suffering and death of billions of animals each year.

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• n 1991 Kentucky Fried Chicken officially changed their name to KFC. Everyone thought it was in order to shorten it, or maybe place less emphasis on the word ‘fried’ in the increasingly health-conscious consumer market. Not so. KFC had been forced by the government to stop using the word chicken. Why? Because the animals they reared in thousands of dark, cramped sheds across the country had been genetically manipulated to the extent that they were no longer the same species.
  
• Yes, scientists had created Evil Mutant Chickens! These were creatures with no feathers, no beaks, no feet and hardly even any bone to support them – organisms designed to provide an almost pure meat harvest. Most had at least six (footless) legs – why do you think chicken drumsticks are always sold in sixes in supermarkets?
  
• Due to protests and boycotts KFC now no longer use these mutant chickens in their products. Unfortunately these creatures were not all disposed of safely – some animal rights activists broke into one of the sheds and several of the creatures escaped into the nearby countryside. Their six legs made them impossible to catch and their lack of feathers to protect them from the sun drove them underground. They now inhabit the sewer system waiting to prey on innocent victims
• OK so I made that last paragraph up. But the part about mutant chickens was actually spread round the internet a great deal, to the extreme annoyance of KFC

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• This claims that KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) is trying to increase profits by developing genetically engineered chickens that have more meat, are cheaper to raise, and faster to process.  They are variously described as having no heads, no beaks, no legs, and no feathers.  That's why they changed their name to KFC.
• t's complete fiction.  KFC denies it and there is no evidence of the genetically engineered chickens described.   KFC uses chickens that are born from other chickens in the normal way.  KFC did not change it's name in order to accommodate chickens that are not really chickens.  

• KFC is plotting a major consumer ad push in China next month as it battles increased competition and struggles to regain consumers trust that its chicken products are safe.
• The company in November will introduce a new KFC advertising campaign in China about quality assurance, CEO David Novak said on a conference call. It's not a highly original approach, but one that KFC is hoping will resonate with Chinese consumers: The ads will feature store employees and suppliers such as poultry farmers, he said.
• The move comes as parent Yum Brands-in part due to its woes in China-said third-quarter profit fell 68%. Net income decreased to $152 million, or 33¢ a share, from $471 million, or $1, a year earlier, the Louisville, Ky.-based company said in a statement. It also cut its 2013 earnings forecast as same-store sales dropped in the Asian nation.
• Yum, which gets about three-quarters of its revenue from outside the U.S., is facing more competition from expanding restaurant chains, such as Dicos and Hua Lai Shi in China.

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• IF THERE'S AN AMERICAN COUNTERPART to the tikka masala story, it might be General Tso's chicken, which the New York Times has described as "the most famous Hunanese dish in the world." That might come as news to chefs in Hunan, who apparently had never heard of it until the opening of China to the West in recent decades. The man generally credited with the idea of putting deep-fried chicken pieces in a hot chili sauce was the Hunan-born chef Peng Changkuei, who fled to Taiwan after the Communist revolution in 1949. He named the dish for a 19th-century military commander who led the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, a largely forgotten conflict that claimed upwards of 20 million lives. Peng moved to New York in 1973 to open a restaurant that became a favorite of diplomats and began cooking his signature dish. Over the years it has evolved in response to American tastes to become sweeter, and in a kind of reverse cultural migration has now been adopted as a "traditional" dish by chefs and food writers in Hunan.
• But increasingly, as foreign observers have noticed, "chicken" to the Chinese, at least those who live in the cities, means what's served at KFC. Since the first drumstick was dipped into a fryer in Beijing in 1987, the chain has opened more than 3,000 branches around the country, and is now more profitable in China than in the United States. Numerous reasons have been advanced for this success, from the cleanliness of the restrooms to the alleged resemblance of Colonel Sanders to Confucius, but it apparently does not reflect a newfound Chinese appetite for the cuisine of the American mid-South. "You can find bone-in fried chicken there," notes Mary Shelman, a Kentucky native and the head of the agribusiness program at Harvard Business School. "But it's always dark meat, which the Chinese prefer, and it's one menu item out of around 30, and it's not the most popular." The chain has thrived by offering the Chinese customers food they were already familiar with, including (depending on the region) noodles, rice and dumplings, along with chicken wraps, chicken patties and chicken wings, which are so popular, Shelman says, that the company periodically has to deny rumors it has a farm somewhere that raises six-winged chickens.
• f it did, you could be sure, chicken hobbyists would be clamoring to buy them for their flocks, fancy restaurants would add them to their menus and food bloggers would be debating whether the first, second or third pair made the best Buffalo wings. The globe-spanning chicken is an epic story of evolutionary, agricultural and culinary success, outnumbering human beings on the planet by nearly three to one. Yes, we get to eat them, but we also feed them. And they provide -- along with omelets, casseroles, fricassees, McNuggets and chicken-liver pâté -- an answer to the question that every 6-year-old boy, visiting a natural history museum for the first time, has asked his parents: "What did a dinosaur taste like?"

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• The Shocking Truth about KFC - What Happens to the Unsold Chicken Parts

   

  Some months ago, a rumour made its way across the Internet that fast-food chain KFC could no longer use the word chicken in the company name, as KFC products came from a creature genetically altered to the point it could no longer be so classified.

   
• Like much on the Internet, this story turned out to be urban legend, with no basis in fact. Some think it may even have been put out by KFC itself, to detract attention from more harmful allegations, ones less easy to debunk, based as they are, in truth. My own research into KFC, in which I have uncovered things yet darker and more disturbing than any urban legend about genetically altered birds, would indicate this to be the case.
• Whatever the working practices (see http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/), KFC sell plenty of chickens; reported sales of $361.3 million for the last quarter of 2004 indicate 36 million birds killed. However, in the same period, KFC actually slaughtered 39 million chickens for their products; a discrepancy of three million chickens. It is reasonable to ask what happened to these three million chickens. Perhaps KFC staff are given chickens as a bonus for hard work.
• You will be unsurprised to find out this is not the case. In fact, I have it on good authority that many chickens are plucked and cooked for selling but not sold. Apparently the surplus is produced to ensure a constant chicken supply, albeit a certain amount of chicken goes to waste. But is this really likely? Are we to believe one of the world’s most successful companies operates in this manner? Surely if KFC produced more chickens than it sold it would be unprofitable. Ensuring a constant supply of chickens is an implausible explanation for the chicken shortfall and can be dismissed. What then are we to make of this overproduction of chickens?

• The KFC website (http://www.kfc.com) is very interesting. It tells us that the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken is a closely guarded secret, developed by KFC’s founder, Colonel Sanders.

   

• According to KFC:

   

  “For years, Colonel Harland Sanders carried the secret formula for his Kentucky Fried Chicken in his head and the spice mixture in his car. Today, the recipe is locked away in a safe in Louisville, Ky. Only a handful of people know that multi-million dollar recipe (and they've signed strict confidentiality contracts) …

   

• … Today, security precautions protecting the recipe would make even James Bond proud.”

   

  Why so much security for a recipe for chicken? Surely anyone could discover the constituents using a simple chemical analysis of a KFC meal. Are the following procedures really necessary?

   
• “One company blends a formulation that represents only part of the recipe. Another spice company blends the remainder. A computer processing system is used to
• safeguard and standardize the blending of the products, but neither company has the complete recipe.”
• Even companies that create nuclear weapons don’t have such high security. There is no chance that a mere recipe for creating chicken sauce could demand such procedures. Therefore we must assume that ‘recipe’ is in fact a code word. To find out what it means we must examine the personality of Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
• It is a well-known fact that one of Colonel Sanders' favourite books was Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. With this knowledge the truth becomes clear. Colonel Sanders created a fast food chain merely as a front.
• The real purpose was to create life from inanimate matter. ‘Recipe’ is clearly a code word for this procedure - a set of instructions for how to make a living ‘Frankenstein Chicken’ from inanimate, cooked chicken parts.
• Never could Colonel Sanders have imagined his dream being realised on so vast a scale - millions of chickens a year created from unsold KFC baskets - a vast army of Frankenstein chickens.
• The despicable purpose of these terrible birds we can only guess. Considering that chickens cannot fly it is hard to see what use they would be; possibly another type of bird is being created - a giant albatross, perhaps. But this is mere speculation. The most important thing is that the truth be known. We must expose this abominable Kentucky Frankenstein Chicken scam and stop these evil corporate swine from meddling with things they shouldn't before something even more terrible happens.

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• Most Americans have heard the story about KFC's not-chicken. So the story goes, KFC has had to change its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC in order to avoid litigation from people claiming that the animal fried and served by them is not actually a chicken but is some genetically modified creature.
  
  Most sites claim that the story originated from a circulated e-mail, and that this e-mail claims that the University of New Hampshire discovered the truth about the chicken during a study.
  
• When I say most sites, I mean debunking sites. If you look this story up on a WWW search engine, your results are invariably divided between two catagories: sites relating the story and asking if it's real, and sites debunking the myth as 'urban legend'. Those that ask the question usually don't mention any letter, rather relating that the story was received word-of-mouth, whereas almost all of the debunking sites display the alleged letter in full.
• Something else that all of the debunking sites have in common are links to other debunking sites as 'proof' that the story is a hoax.
  
• Meanwhile, no debunking site links to any official page hosted by KFC or its parent company Yum! Brands, Incorporated as a source of an official stance or statement on the subject.
  
  If you were to go to University of New Hampshire's site on the subject, their sources are links to, again, other sites who do the debunking.
  
  An interesting analysis of the University of New Hampshire's official site on the subject, http://www.unh.edu/BoilerPlate/kfc.html , shows use of language that might allow them to sidestep the issue without responsibility:
• "An active Internet hoax, of the urban legend type, falsely claims that KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is using genetically engineered organisms instead of chickens. The hoax includes reference to an unspecified study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire and there is no such research or study that was done here. "
  
• By the words "falsely claims", the University may simply be referring to the fact that their version of the story, printed at the bottom of the page, mentions a University of New Hampshire study that the University maintains was never actually conducted.
  
• You would think that the University would, for the sake of clarity, not mention the study at all except to state that they have not performed one. Then, they could move on to discussing other aspects of the alleged legend. This isn't done; instead, after calling the story 'false', they explain that it is false because it contains a reference to a study that was never conducted, and then the details of the rest of the debunking are handed over to debunking sites who are somehow officials on the subject.
• The debunking sites, again, simply refer to one another as officials on the subject.
  
• The University of New Hampshire offers this link to an alleged official KFC page concerning their chicken:
  http://www.kfc.com/Restaurant/nutrition/nutrition.asp
• Sadly, this alleged URL results in a page that isn't found. This is not a net issue, since all other official KFC pages originating from their http://www.kfc.com server are up and running smoothly. The link provided by University of New Hampshire is either outdated or 'false', but is essentially useless for proving anything.
  
• If this was an official page referring to the official stance of KFC on the subject, it should still be at its URL where it can be conveniently located by lawyers and the public. It's absence doesn't necessarily prove anything, either.
  
• "Here is the text of one version of the KFC hoax that we've seen: "
  
  Followed by a text of the alleged e-mail. Notice that they are vague about the originality of the message; they could have written it themselves and still described it as they did above. This vague language introduces the possibility that all of the versions of this e-mail that appear on the various 'debunking' sites (and they invariably do) that contain a reference to the University of New Hampshire could perhaps have been written by the University in the first place, or even by KFC.
  
• The sole debunking point used when referring to these letters is that there was no such study conducted by the University of New Hampshire. However, this is where the search for truth ends. All the remaining debunking points are as speculative as the subject they are trying to debunk. Author's opinions are provided as scientific evidence of proof of hoax.
  
• Often, debunking sites refer to the hoax as the product of 'paranoid culture' and usually go on to talk about how genetically modified food is harmless. This is also not proof of anything, either way.
  
  The University simply states that it has nothing to do with any such study. The University will not address any other point of the subject except to provide opinionated conjecture, an insult to the public, and links to other sites. Their link, again, to KFC is broken.
  
• Enough about amatuerish debunking sites linking to one another, and to The University who offically has absolutely nothing to do with any of the subject, at all. Enough, as well, about a broken official KFC link. Let's go straight to KFC.
• In 1939, Colonel Harland Sanders first gave the world a taste of his most famous creation, Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken, "
  
  This is the first mention of chicken made by the site. Since it is in reference to not only old chickens but the old company name, this statement is not useful in determining the reality of the story. The company in question is KFC, not Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even if the colonel did use real chickens, the above statement is just an anecdote about the old days. It has nothing to do with what's being used today.
• "We still take pride in doing things The Colonel's way, utilizing only the highest quality ingredients, innovative recipes, and time-tested cooking methods."
• Chickens aren't mentioned. This statement is not useful in determining the reality of the story.
  
  "Only KFC has so much tasty chicken, fresh from our kitchens, just for you."
  
• This statement could very well be an official KFC stance on the subject. However, I can perceive three large, allowable legal loopholes. First, that KFC branch stores and menus aren't mentioned. Second, that sale and product aren't mentioned, at all. KFC has so much, but they aren't saying they've giving it to you. Thirdly, and this is the only squeeze of the three, 'so much' could be any amount from all to none of the chickens in the world.
  
• This statement, again, could be the official stance, but it isn't. If you need a fourth point, KFC does not offer any chicken fresh from the kitchen at any of its branch restaurants -- all the chicken is frozen and packaged before it even gets shipped to there, and they will tell you this readily.
• Any food, in any package or container, can be referred to as 'fresh' as long as it's sold before the sell-by date. Those crumby chocolate-covered muffins in the plastic-wrap that sell for a quarter can be referred to as 'fresh' if the company chooses. You pour month-old cereal from the box, but the official stance of the cereal company's advertising firm is that elves magically baked it fresh in a kitchen just moments ago, that fits in a tree right before you put it in your mouth. The ingredients on the bag at the point of sale will, of course, inform you plainly otherwise.
• "KFC strives to ensure that the information contained in this web site is accurate and reliable. However, KFC and the World Wide Web (or Web Site Host) are not infallible and errors may sometimes occur. Therefore, to the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law, KFC disclaims any warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, as to any matter whatsoever relating to this web site, including with out limitation the merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. "
  
• As you can tell by reading the above statement, even if you do find, somewhere on the official KFC web site, a page that has an official stance on the subject of the biological status of their chickens, you can't even really hold them to what's printed there.
  
• Basically this says that anything you find on their web site can't be considered their official stance. Whatever you are reading on their web site could be attributed to mechanical or human error. KFC disclaims any warranty of any kind, whether express or implied.
  
• We are going to look for an official page, any way, because if they say it here on their official web page then there's a good chance that it might be true, even if they have legally disowned all the content of the site.
  
• This is the website page (I would say 'official page' but their page-disowning legal disclaimer sort of makes that a useless label at this point) available at the KFC site that talks about their policy on animal treatment.
• First of all, you can try searching this page for the word "chicken". I've done it, and I wasn't successful. You may find the word "chicken" somewhere there.
  
• "Yum! Brands is the owner of restaurant companies and, as such, does not own, raise, or transport animals. "
  
• One of the first things said on this page is that the parent company of KFC doesn't handle animals. Well, the parent has disowned any animal whatsoever, so they really don't need to be mentioned or brought up again in determining the truthfulness of this story. Even if they are mutant animals, Yum! has nothing to do with them. Perhaps they have some responsibility at point of sale, and in truthful advertising, but for now we're just going to address the animals being used.
• This is the page at the KFC web site that talks about poultry, which is a word meaning large birds to be eaten.
  
  I am going to count words on this page:
  
  "Bird" occurs 13 times.
  "Poultry" occurs 3 times.
  
• "Chicken" occurs 1 time. Here is the paragraph:
  
• "KFC prohibits its suppliers from using growth-promoting substances, and requires its suppliers to raise birds in clean chicken houses with appropriate space and proper ventilation. "
  
• If the word "chicken" was used in reference to an actual bird or poultry, then we might put KFC in the clear and determine that their products actually are chickens. However, you might notice that the word is used in the term "chicken houses".
• You could put anything in a chicken house: apples, bananas, video games, and mutants all fit inside chicken houses just fine, and they are still inside chicken houses.
• A "chicken house" could be described as housing, building, location, place, structure, or architecture. It is not a bird or poultry, per se.
• If you put mutants inside a chicken house, it is still a chicken house.
  
• The above KFC statement containing the word "chicken" cannot be used to determine the truthfulness of the story or the biological status of the animals.
  
• Furthermore, all references to practices involving actual animals suddenly use the word "poultry" or "bird". The only time the word "chicken" is used is in reference to a type of building.
  
• Arguably, my own house that you or I live is in a "chicken castle" or "chicken mansion". However, there might not be any chickens inside and you and I may never touch any real chickens any time in our life, even while we spend all our time inside a chicken castle.
• This page does not mention birds, poultry, or chicken.
  
• There are recipes available from the web site, including a Chicken Pot Pie. The recipe involves chickens. It is possible that KFC uses real chickens for the small amount of meat needed in a tiny pie, but uses mutants for the huge drumsticks and breasts that you buy in the product called "Original Recipe".
  
• It is now time for me to visit a KFC and order alleged chickens.
  
• I felt it was a safe move not to ask any employees if the product was actual chicken. Instead I just ordered a 2-piece meal with biscuit, cole slaw, and macaroni and cheese.
  
• Something interesting to note is that I did not say I ordered any chicken. In fact, unless I was interested in a pot pie or a honey BBQ tidbit, there was no chicken available. Those were the only two items on the menu to feature the word 'chicken'. Furthermore, those were the only two occurances of the word 'chicken' appearing anywhere in the store. Also, they had just run out of all honey BBQ food objects.
• From the time I walked in the door to the time I walked out, everything was referred to as either 'meal', 'piece', 'thigh', 'leg', 'wing', or 'buffalo wing'. This is odd for a place trying to sell chicken.
• McDonalds and Burger King both sell mainly beef, and this is apparent in most of their commercials and is advertised on the outside of most of their stores. When you walk into those burger joints, there are several notices that you are purchasing 'pure beef' or 'usda beef'. When you walk into a KFC, you apparently are lucky to spot the word 'chicken'.
  
• Something else I noticed is that the inside of the franchise bears no resemblance to the bastard corporate website.
  
• Something I notice on closely inspecting the plastic cup (there's no size marking any where on it, but I think it's about 20 oz.) is that the colonel is featured dancing and in the last frame of his cartoon it appears that his left arm has been severed. This isn't just a miscolor, either -- the line that makes up the drawing depicts his elbow attached to his ribcage and his shoulder dangling in mid-air. I guess that's karma.
• I wouldn't have any problem eating it even if KFC's public announcement was that it's made out of ten-legged battery chickens. In fact, since that would probably make the meal extremely cheap to produce and therefore cheaper to buy, I would probably enjoy it even more. I think environmentalism has its place, and food repression isn't it.
• I devoured the meal with a fever; whatever it's made out of, it's damn tasty.
• Anyways, back to trying to figure out if it's chicken or just tastes like it.
  
• Everywhere you look, no matter who you ask, both the alleged hoaxers and the debunkers seem to be at a loss for anything but conjecture. Nobody can prove it, one way or the other.
  
• Since we're at a total lack for any official word from KFC themselves, or even a willingness to stand by the content of their site, or even an official press release, the story goes on.
  
• Finally there's the point of untestable litigation.
  
• There have been mentioned here a few possible points where KFC might, in a world of mutant chickens, be guilty of false advertising. I stress might -- those two items they offer with the word 'chicken' could very well contain the more expensive, more terrestrial actual chicken entity.
• The pot pie probably contains minced, mechanically seperated chicken bits which aren't too expensive to store and ship. It would be worth the trade in consumer comfort to have that item on the menu that says 'chicken' even if it's the only chicken word in the store. And the website seems to stress avoiding
• actually saying outright "we sell you chicken at every restaurant!" and not only that but the official company policy is that the website basically sucks.
  
• The only problem, of course, is that in a world of powerful lobbying, blind consumership, and socially imposed beliefs as 'norms', you would be hard pressed to find representation to litigate against KFC or any fans of your case. And, since they can hire teams of powerful lawyers, even those few little points of possibly false advertising can be defended far, far better than I have attempted to attack or defend them here.
• I would like to finish on the note that all the debunking sites out there could be scientifically and skeptically presented truths, or they could be a network of web contacts paid by the corporations in question to work in tandem with the University of New Hampshire to attempt, however stolidly, to squash the information campaign regarding fake chickenry.
• The version of the letter containing false reports of a UNH study could even have been written by persons within the University of New Hampshire, for the obvious purpose of debunking the entire situation as a figment of somebody's imagination. This is a possibility not yet mentioned by any of the scientific debunkers on any of their sites.

58 more annotations...

• Subject: Boycott KFC  KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating?
• During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts. First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms.
  
• These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.
• The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.
  
• "I heard the KFC story verbally in England back in 1995 while traveling there on business. It was slightly different, though... instead of being legless, the chickens in this story were being bred with 6 legs each, thereby providing additional drumsticks per chicken! Other than that it was the same story, with the KFC name change taking place because the British government would not let them use the word chicken."  
  
• I've heard this one several times and I still say? Anyone? B******T! This is one of those legends out there to insult your intelligence. For those of you who don't know basics of bird genealogoy I'll try to simplfy it. Plus and I quote the legend "no more removal of the beaks". There is no cost to removing beaks because the entire head is removed, not the beak.
   For starting points sake a near boneless and beakless chicken would never be accomplished. 1) The chicken (any bird as a matter of fact) uses a specail "horn" on the beak when it hatches. The "horn" is really an eggtooth, a small horn shaped bump on the end of a chicks beak. The chick uses both beak and eggtooth to hatch. The chick must break the film that holds air in the eggshell to get it's first breath then use the now hardening beak and horn to break the shell. (see ill.)
• A beakless bird would die after a day and a half after the 20th day of incubation.  
  
• 2) On the list is the fact that such a chicken with so much "genetic tampering" would cost millions to build a lab, several more to secure and hire scientist, genetic engineers, equipment, gene mapping technology, broilers(chicken raised for meat, cronish-rock cross often.See ill.) to extract genetic materail, several millions to figure out how to "incubate" these mutants outside an egg (another impossibility), and then how do you breed a near boneless chicken?
• Now here comes a new flaw to the whole legend: How do you breed the near boneless mutant?
  
• For those who don't know about chicken biology should know that A) The shell of an egg is not created by the calcium a hen eats, it's taken from the bones! As weak bone structures as these things are supposed to have an egg would kill the mutant hen thus a waste of millions(by the way the first mutant would cost millions and those following would cost thousands each.).
   If a regular barnyard hen were to lay an egg with a low calcium in bones she would lay a yolk with a light film that would crack instantly in the nest or even she might lay a completely shelless egg in both cases the egg is useless for food or breeding purposes.
  
• The final resort is to clone. It would take all the above mentioned machinary minus some and some of the scientists above would still be needed to clone our mutant into several more each at the price of thousands for one bird.
• Now after all this expense to create the mutant chicken I give you something else to think over. A cronish rock cross (Don't let the drawing fool you) can weigh anywhere from 15-20 pounds! I owned a Texas A&M broilor hen that hit the scale at 18 pounds! Why spend so much when the "heavy mutant" chicken already exists. It may not be featherless, beakless or have several legs but it is the biggest (weight wise) chicken around.
• I wouldn't believe this one at all unless you pop into your local KFC and have to pay $5,000 for a drumstick alone.
   Now I don't want anyone jumping to any conclusion on the next part: Is a bald chicken possible? Is a multiple legged chicken possible? Yes. (Here is where I want you to not jump the gun.)
• Okay, a multi legged chicken is possible but, and I do mean "but", it would take several! generations that could be well over a thousand years or more! Birds are the decendants of dinosaurs, now some birds "but" very rare have "fingers" on their wings. The haiwatsun (will correct later if spelled wrong) has these primitive fingers as a chick, they help it grip branches and climb back into the nest if knocked out. When it reaches adulthood these "fingers" are just little stubs then they are just claws. Some chickens are born with claws on their wing butts. After selective breeding these claws could be grown into a arm like the first primitive feathered reptiles.
• Finally: Is a featherless chicken possible? Yes. "But" it already does exist! I would like you to meet Buzzard my pet Turken (A chicken bred for it's turkrylike qualities).
   
• Buzzard from the photos above may seem like she is featherless just on her neck but, she has less feathers under her wings, legs, and even around her vent (a chicken doesn't have a "butt" the vent is where the eggs and feces are expelled, also the sexaul organs are held in the vent protecting them.) these featherless regions of the body are traits of the Turken breed. A truly bald chicken has been born! In south america a family of chicken farms purchased Turkens as a novelty fowl to help make some extra cash. A few years of breeding and a shock came to them when a chick was hatched completely featherless! The bird is still in the family's possesion and will not be sold. They are now exhibiting the freak Turken. I saw it on Real TV about 3 years ago. It's been done and I'm going to try! With Buzzard's help of course. 
  
• Now I apologize for being so long winded on this story but, it was so stupid and people where believing it that I felt I should resolve this matter.-JLB. By the way here's a catalog pic. of Turkens. They have little bald necks from day one!

15 more annotations...

• To us, chicken is everything. It's what the C in our name stands for
  and it's what we care about most. So we make sure our chickens
  have lived happily and healthily, that they are real and fresh,
  and that they are perfectly prepared for you.

   

         

   

• Grade A quality chicken no matter what

   

  As many of you already know, all of our original recipe chicken on the bone comes from the UK and is Red Tractor certified. But no matter where our chicken is from it must meet the same standard on quality and welfare and meet or exceed Red Tractor requirements as shown by this behind the scene look at one of our suppliers in Thailand.
  
  Which means, whatever great tasting KFC product you?re enjoying, you're always getting grade A great quality chicken.
  
  For more detailed information click here