Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between Wendy's in the UK and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In the UK, Wendy's iconic Frosties come in three sizes,
junior, regular, and large.
In the US, we actually have four Frosty sizes,
junior, small, medium, large.
We're going to pour out the largest Frosty
to see how big it is compared to the US's.
The classic hamburger at a Wendy's
is called a Dave's,
named after the founder, Dave Thomas.
Ours come in singles, doubles, and triples.
Our burgers are the same in the UK.
They also come as singles, doubles, or triples.
Joe: Now we're going to weigh a US triple.
Pretty close. 14 ounces for our triple.
Now, while a triple might be the official limit
on burger sizes at Wendy's,
Wendy's enthusiasts have come up
with something called a Meat Cube.
This is a secret menu item
where you actually take an extra meat patty
and add it to this,
so you get four patties,
which I think adds up to around a pound.
Joe, I'm officially challenging you
to a Meat Cube showdown.
The fastest person to eat the entire Meat Cube wins.
You think you got it?
I accept your challenge, Harry.
Let's do this.
Harry: Three, two, one.
Joe: Start.
This is a lot of beef.
I see why the triple is the limit now.
Time?
Conner: 1:07.
I wish I had more time to chew it.
[coughing]
Need the sauce. Need some moisture.
[grunts]
The buns!
Harry: Oh, God.
[Joe stammering]
Joe: How'd I do?
Harry: Done.
Yeah!
Woo!
USA, baby!
Conner: How do you feel?
Oh, terrible.
I feel absolutely terrible. [coughs]
And yet elated that I won.
Well, now we know why the US has such an obesity problem.
OK. That's quite enough of that.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Another iconic Wendy's menu item is the Baconator.
In the UK, these just come in one size, as a regular.
Of course, in the US we also have the Baconator,
but we have a smaller Baconator
known as the Son of Baconator.
Something incredibly unsettling about
a burger having a child that's also a burger.
This Baconator giving birth to that Baconator.
Harry: And, of course, we're going to weigh
the regular Baconators to see whose is bigger.
The highly regarded Wendy's nuggets
that come in regular or spicy. Love the spicy.
They come in units of four, six, and 10.
Nuggets in the UK only come in two portion sizes,
four and eight.
Wendy's, of course, has fries,
and those fries in the US come in four sizes,
junior, small, medium, large.
Our fries also come in four sizes,
value, small, medium, and large.
Let's weigh our large fries to see who's getting more.
Ours is way less.
Hmm.
What's that all about?
Another side that is probably unique to Wendy's,
I can't think of any other fast-food place that does this,
is Wendy's chili.
It has been on the menu since it opened back in 1969.
In the US, you can get your chili,
ugh, for whatever reason,
in two sizes, small and large.
In the UK, we only have one size of chili,
which is this one.
We're going to weigh it against the largest size
in the US to find the difference.
Finally, let's compare drinks.
In the US, you can get three sizes of drink,
small, medium, and large.
On the internet, it does not specify
how much fluid ounces are in any of these.
If I had to guess, too much; way too much;
way, way too much.
In the UK, drinks come in three sizes,
small, medium, or large.
And these are advertised as being
12, 16, and 20 ounces, respectively.
Let's measure the largest drinks
to see which country's is bigger.
So, our large drink actually came out as closer
to 18 ounces than closer to 20.
I will say that in the UK
you fill up your own drink,
so maybe I just needed to fill a bit more.
OK, so their large is 18 ounces.
What is our small?
20 ounces. So our small is bigger than their large.
Man, we love drinking our calories in this country.
We love drinking our calories.
For this episode, we thought it might be fun
to compare some prices from Wendy's in the UK and the US.
Let's use this Baconator as a basis for comparison.
In the US, a Baconator on its own, no combo,
would cost $7.39.
The same burger in the UK will cost you
£6.29, which, at the time of recording this,
was around $8.90, which is a 20% increase.
However, if you were to turn this into a medium combo,
yes, this is the medium,
the price would go up to $11.19.
Whereas in the UK, adding a Baconator to a combo meal
will only increase the price to £7.09.
So, actually, a US meal is now 11% more expensive.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Harry, don't get ahead of yourself.
Wendy's in the US has an ace up its sleeve,
the 4 for $4 promotion.
[clears throat]
You can get your choice of a junior bacon cheeseburger;
a junior cheeseburger, seen here;
a double stack; or a crispy chicken sandwich
along with junior fries, four nuggets,
and a value drink. All of this, 4 bucks.
Sadly, Wendy's has not replicated that deal
here in the UK, not even in the form
of a 4 for £4 deal.
If you were to buy all the components
of a US 4 for $4 here in the UK,
it would cost you £6.36, which is about $9.
That's a 125% increase on the US price.
The real damage here is done by the nuggets,
which cost £2.99 on their own in the UK.
That's around $4.24,
aka more than the entire 4 for $4 combo in the US.
So it looks like the US provides more value
if you're a little smart about what you order
and how you order it.
Say you walk into a US Wendy's
and you want to get the Baconator combo meal.
Just how unhealthy is it, you ask?
Well, I will tell you. OK.
The burger, 960 calories.
Fries, 360 calories.
And the drink, medium, right? Coke, OK,
it's going to be 370 calories.
This whole shebang, 1,690 calories.
That's 84% of your daily allowance.
What about the same meal here in the UK?
Well, our Baconator is actually more calorific,
as it comes in at 1,010 calories.
However, the fries are just 239 calories,
and the Coke, just 200,
leaving the total at 1,449.
That's a 16% decrease from the US.
What, you ask, is the most calorific thing
on the Wendy's US menu?
It is this burger in front of me.
The pretzel bacon pub triple.
Look at this thing.
Goodness.
1,520 calories.
106 grams of fat. 45 of those grams are saturated.
That's 135% of your daily fat allowance.
Sadly, that's a US exclusive, and our most calorific item
is actually just the Dave's triple.
In the UK, one of these is 1,204 calories,
with 81 grams of fat, of which 33 grams are saturated.
Thankfully, Wendy's discloses a full ingredients list
for both the UK and the US,
so let's take a closer look
at some of the menu items right now.
Here is everything that's in a Wendy's Baconator in the UK.
Strap in, because this is a long ingredients section.
Premium bun. Wheat flour, water, sugar, yeast.
Mayonnaise. Rapeseed oil (78%), water.
Ketchup. Tomatoes, 148 grams.
American cheese slice. Cheese (70%) (milk).
Beef patty. 100% beef.
Bacon. Sugar, water.
Table salt. Salt, anticaking agent, sodium ferrocyanide.
Seems like a lot, right?
Well, guess what?
We got the UK beat again.
Here's everything in a US Baconator.
Start with the premium bun.
Enriched flour, which is wheat flour,
malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron,
[fast-forwarding]
sodium nitrite. [exhales]
That's all of it.
Whew. Now, that is a long list.
And is there anything in there
that you should be worried about?
Well, we can start with sodium nitrite,
which is found in the applewood-smoked bacon.
Sodium nitrite is a chemical used to cure meats,
and it gives them that appealing pink color,
which is perfect for bacon.
It's also super toxic.
It's prohibited for sale on certain websites, like eBay,
because it's been used in homicide attempts,
and a dental assistant once died
after eating just a 1-gram tablet by mistake.
Thankfully, there's none of that in the UK,
but just like the US,
we do have lecithin in our American cheese.
According to some academics,
there are a "worrisome number" of scientific studies
which have suggested that it can promote depression,
which is kind of the last thing that I need.
Outside of the Baconator,
there are one or two ingredients you should watch out for
in the pretzel bacon pub burger.
The pretzel bun contains potassium chloride,
which in normal food doses is fine,
but is one of the three ingredients
in the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injection.
Apparently, enough of it would cause
an abnormal heartbeat and cardiac arrest.
Let's be honest.
If anything in this burger is stopping your heart,
it's gonna be the cholesterol and saturated fat
long before the potassium chloride.
The pickles also contain polysorbate 80.
Now, this is commonly used as an emulsifier in some foods,
but with pickles it's used as a solubilizer,
which means that it helps other ingredients
dissolve in the brine.
The bad news is studies have suggested
that it can cause colon cancer in mice. Yikes.
Here's everything you'll find at a Wendy's in the UK
that you won't find in the US.
And here is everything you can get at a US Wendy's
you can't get in the UK.
This is ridiculous. [laughs]
Let's start with the burgers.
Now, as far as I can tell,
we only have three exclusive burgers,
one of which I'm not even sure is an exclusive burger,
which is this one, the cheeseburger deluxe.
The reason I'm not sure if it's an exclusive
is because in the US you guys have something called
a junior cheeseburger deluxe,
which looked very similar to this.
And I just wanted to check if
what you guys consider junior
we consider deluxe over here.
Yes, Harry, they look pretty similar.
The only difference I could find is that
ours has ketchup and mayo and yours has "sauce."
So I guess it boils down to whatever your sauce is.
Next up we've got this one, which is the Veggie Stack.
It's a vegetarian exclusive.
There's definitely some, like, corn in there.
Some kind of, like, black bean, kidney bean thing,
maybe some carrot and pepper.
It's not for me, but I am a die-hard carnivore,
so maybe there's vegetarians out there
who'll appreciate this a lot more.
Our final exclusive sandwich is this one,
the avocado chicken club.
Oh, my goodness. We have so much to go through.
I guess I will start with the burgers.
Here is something called the bourbon bacon cheeseburger.
And we have bourbon barbecue sauce.
Something for Wendy's burger aficionados.
The pretzel bacon pub cheeseburger.
I think it comes in one, two, or three stacks.
This is the three stacker.
OK. The double stack,
which is two patties, cheese, bacon.
A junior hamburger.
Junior hamburger. Look how small this is. For the kids.
Junior cheeseburger deluxe. Ooh, yeah.
Lettuce, onion, tomato, pickles.
There it is.
The Big Bacon Classic.
OK. So they went to the chicken. All right.
Chicken goodies.
The Asiago ranch chicken sandwich.
OK, this is the jalapeño popper sandwich.
The pretzel bun bacon pub sandwich.
Crispy chicken BLT sandwich.
It looks to be what a BLT would be
with a little chicken guy in there.
[sighs]
So, spicy nuggets. I mentioned before.
The spicy is way better than the regulars.
Way better.
Then we have a couple of
exclusive salad options in the UK.
I'm usually pretty suspicious of fast-food salads,
but I've got to say, these actually do look pretty good.
The first exclusive salad that I wanted to show you
was the avocado veggie salad.
However, I think they got the order mixed up
and gave me an avocado chicken salad instead.
So what I was supposed to get was this salad,
which contains avocado,
and then instead of the chicken and bacon,
we're supposed to get some of the veggie bites,
but mixed up in there instead.
And then the second exclusive salad is this one.
This is the apple cranberry chicken salad.
You know it's a good salad when they give you
the dressing and some other accoutrement on the side
instead of just jumbling it all up
and then, like, letting it get soggy.
We got four salads.
Man, jalapeño popper again.
The chicken, the bacon, jalapeños, cheese.
Taco salad.
Hey, is there any...?
There's no ground beef on this.
There's no meat on this.
It's like what you would put on tacos at home.
Shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, cut-up tomatoes.
Next salad!
Apple pecan salad.
The summer strawberry salad.
[grunts]
Chicken, bacon, strawberries. Yeah, OK.
We have one other exclusive veggie option,
which is this one.
These are veggie bites.
Now, these are a vegetarian alternative
to Wendy's chicken nuggets.
Just judging from kind of the look and smell of them,
I think they're made from probably
a very similar blend to the Veggie Stack burger.
And for that reason, I probably won't try and eat one.
It looks like falafel but just smells and feels way worse.
[laughs]
I love falafel, and I don't love these.
The pub fries. Yes.
Who hasn't been in a pub getting a pint with the lads?
Man, they're really pushing strawberries
this summer, Wendy's.
And the salad? And then they got these?
Two things equals a lot to me.
Also got a thing of apple slices.
I don't know if this is a solo side.
I don't know why we have apple slices.
If you need something to dip your veggie bites
or anything else into,
then we have a couple of exclusive sauce options as well.
Deep voice: Sauce talk.
Harry: We'll start with this one, which is a garlic mayo.
And then our other exclusive sauce is this one,
which is a pot of Heinz sweet chili.
We love sweet chili sauce here in the UK.
I don't know why, but it's just offered
by a lot of big fast-food chains.
I got a whole bag here.
Dipping sauces.
Buttermilk ranch.
Ooh, creamy sriracha.
Side of S'Awesome.
Something called the hot chili seasoning.
We also have a few exclusive breakfast items
from the UK Wendy's, starting with this one,
which is just an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.
I'm sure they would make you one of these
in the US if you asked,
but it's actually a default menu item in the UK,
whereas it didn't look like it was one in the US.
And true to form for the UK,
we have three different porridge options for breakfast.
We have plain porridge.
Add some jam to it.
They give you a little sachet of jam,
and you squeeze that into your porridge.
And, finally, probably the most
exciting porridge option, which is this one.
It's the cranberry seed porridge.
There's a lot of breakfast sandwiches to go through,
so let's give it a shot.
I'll just go down the line here.
Maple bacon chicken croissant sandwich.
Everything square with Wendy's.
Sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit.
[grunts]
Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.
Sausage biscuit.
Yeah, these are always, like,
it's just, it really is
just the sausage patty and a biscuit.
Like, can you think of something drier
to have in the morning?
Breakfast burrito. This thing is ice cold.
I'm sorry, Wendy's.
I did not mean to misrepresent your breakfast burrito.
I'm sure it's great.
This thing, it's like, jeez, Louise.
Oh, no, I don't even know what this is. Conner!
Chicken biscuit.
Biscuit and fried chicken. And nothing else.
The Wendy's in the US, you can get a cold brew iced coffee,
a vanilla Frosty-ccino, and a chocolate Frosty-ccino.
Now, we have a few exclusive drinks in the UK,
but they're pretty much all hot drinks.
Now, it looked like in the US you guys can get
the very basic kind of filter coffee
or you can get the Frosty-ccinos and stuff like that,
whereas in the UK, we have a whole range of espresso drinks.
You can get things like lattes and cappuccinos,
as well as some breakfast teas.
They have a bunch of lemonades.
One has an N on it.
Is this the all-natural lemonade?
It is. Wow. And this lemonade's really good.
Strawberry lemonade is excellent. Man.
Wendy's with the strawberries this year.
Pineapple mango.
Ooh, yeah.
Tropical, kind of. Tropical.
I bet it's tropical berry!
Good drinks.
Now, also, I'm looking for a Flashin' Fruit Punch,
an iced tea, and a sweet iced tea.
And for desserts at Wendy's,
you can get yourself an oatmeal bar,
chocolate chunk cookie,
and, last but not least,
sugar cookie.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is it!
We're done. Cut.
Dude, it would be so funny
if I threw up in the middle of this.
If I have to puke, I'm not gonna say anything.
I'm just gonna barf right on the desk.
I'm not putting that shirt back on. I'm too hot.
Ugh. [burps]