Harry Kersh: From McDonald's to Domino's,
we wanted to find out all the biggest
portion-size differences
between UK and US fast food.
This is "Food Wars."
This is what a small drink looks like in the UK.
Joe Avella: This is a US small.
Harry: This is what a medium drink looks like.
Joe: This is a US medium.
Harry: And this is a large.
Joe: [groaning] And this
is a US large.
Harry: So, with our McNuggets in the UK,
the default adult sizes on the menu
are a box of six,
a box of nine,
or a share box of 20.
Joe: Nuggets.
You can get a box of four,
or you can get a six piece,
or
10,
20, for "sharing,"
or
[groans]
40.
And according to the three McDonald's in the area,
they don't have 20 or 40 boxes.
They just do them in increments of 10.
But this is on the menu.
Harry: Just out of curiosity,
we're gonna bring our trusty friend the scales back,
and we're gonna weigh the Big Mac
and see if there is any difference in size.
Not sure there will be, but let's find out.
[bell rings]
Joe: Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Harry: This is what a regular popcorn chicken
looks like in the UK.
And this is what a large popcorn chicken looks like.
Joe: In the US, we have a large popcorn chicken,
and if you want to go even larger than the large,
you can get yourself popcorn chicken box.
Something for you and your buddies, I'm sure.
You're not eating this by yourself.
Did I lose any?
No?
No way, am I doing this without...
oh, don't jinx it!
Aah, oh!
You,
and you,
and you.
Crumb?
Crumb.
Harry: This is a regular fries,
and this is a large fries.
Joe: Here's the US regular.
All right?
And you wanna go to the next size up,
this is the US large.
Goosh!
Look at how big that is.
It's like five of those ones that he had.
Slo-mo: Goosh!
Harry: Let's find out how much a large fries
weighs in the UK.
Joe: Let's weigh our large fry.
Oh, man.
Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho,
ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
They are packed in there, dude! Look at that.
Is that everything?
Harry: In the UK, you can get buckets in three sizes.
You can get a six piece.
You can get a 10 piece.
Or you can get a 14 piece.
[groaning]
Joe: Eight piece.
Whoa!
[thuds]
12 piece.
Yep, yep, yep.
This is --
I'm not gonna, I can't even dump it.
Yo,
look how much chicken this is.
Oh, my God, what a mess.
Harry: In the UK, we have three drink sizes.
We have a small, which is 250 milliliters.
Joe: This is a US small.
Harry: We have a regular,
which is 400 milliliters.
Joe: This is a US medium.
Harry: And we have a large.
Joe: And here
[groans]
is the US large.
Burger King.
Harry: Now, in the UK, we have three sizes of fries,
small, regular, and large.
Joe: Here's a Burger King small fry,
here's a Burger King medium fry,
and a Burger King large fry.
Harry: So, of the three sizes of fries that we were given,
I'm actually not sure which one is the regular
and which one is the small,
because these two kinda look identical.
We're going to weigh them all.
We're gonna start with this orange-bottomed bag.
80...
88 grams.
Now we're gonna weigh the slightly darker orange bag
and see which size this is.
So, there's only a 5-gram difference,
but this one is the small.
So, a large fries in the UK
looks like it's around 180 grams,
which is double the regular.
[beep] I broke the scale.
[laughs]
We're actually having some concerns about the sizes
of the fries in the UK,
because our measurements showed
that the lighter orange bag actually contained more fries
than the darker orange bag.
However, when lined up very scientifically like this,
what we'll actually see is that
the bag sizes go up in that color order instead.
So I think what's happened here is that
our small was actually bigger than our regular.
Joe: Wow, a lot of fry drama over there in the UK.
As you can see from our sizes,
it's pretty obvious what the small,
medium, and large is,
but, of course, we're still gonna weigh them.
So let's start with the small fry.
Yep.
Whoa, rogue fry.
And now the medium fry.
You're making a face.
I don't like that face.
It's, like...
yeah, it's pretty similar.
I know how we will solve this,
but not,
not that way.
Over here. Burger King is in the hot seat, baby!
Burger King's in the hot seat!
Large fries.
So, I'm gonna do something really tedious and boring.
Two, three, four,
12, 13,
20, 21, 22,
35 regulars,
10 kind of broken-up ones.
One, two,
34 and 18?
But there were a lot of smaller ones.
Producer: Arguably more than the medium.
Joe: Whoa!
That's pretty cold, Burger King.
That is pretty cold.
Don't act like you're surprised by this.
And I know what they're gonna say.
They're gonna be like,
"Well, everyone who scoops it's different."
OK, but our scooper here
and their scooper in the UK made a similar error.
Hmm.
Suspicious, right?
Frygate 2020!
Harry: So, this is a Whopper in the UK.
No, it's not, that's a Halloumi King.
Is this the Whopper?
Have they forgotten the f---ing Whoppers?
Burger King!
So, what we're going to do is weigh a Whopper
and see how much a Whopper weighs in the UK.
[thuds]
Joe: All right, let's take a look at the US Whopper.
First thing I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna weigh it.
Oh, yeah.
That's a Whopper.
Booyah.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
gotta be scientific about it.
Harry: This is the smallest pizza you can get in the UK.
It's called an individual,
and it measures 7 inches across.
Joe: Our smallest is, believe it or not, the small.
Here it is, and it measures, in diameter, 10 inches.
Harry: The next size up is a small,
which measures 9.5 inches.
Joe: Next size up for the US is our medium,
which is 12 inches.
Harry: This is 11.5 inches.
Joe: What? I'm starving.
Hey,
I grabbed a slice.
I'm starving. This pizza smells so good.
I skipped breakfast.
[clapping hands]
Next pizza.
Next up for the US is our large,
which is a 14-inch diameter.
Oh, hell, yeah.
What's with the way they cut your large pizza, Harry?
It's ridiculous. Look at that.
And not to be outdone,
the US has one more size,
the extra large,
diameter 16 inches.
Bro, look at the size of this thing.
Harry: Now, a 2.5-inch difference
might not sound like a lot,
but if you factor that into the surface area,
it's actually 58 square inches wider
than the UK's largest pizza,
which is almost a third of an increase.
Joe: Am I looking at this right?
Is it supposed to be six slices?
It's six slices. That can't be right.
Six slices for a extra-large pizza?
Look at the size of these slices!
Harry: Now, hot coffees in the UK come in four sizes.
Firstly, we have a short coffee, which is 8 ounces.
Joe: The short, 8 ounces.
Harry: Then we have a tall coffee, which is 12 ounces.
Joe: Next we have the tall,
12 ounces. Harry: Next
is a grande coffee, which comes in at 16 ounces.
Joe: Then we got the grande,
16 ounces.
Harry: A venti, or 20 ounces.
Joe: Aah, sensational.
And the biggest one,
the venti,
20 ounces.
And in case you're wondering, it's called the venti
because 20 in Italian is venti-twento.
Harry: Just to double-check,
we're going to measure the largest hot coffee in the UK.
So, our venti coffee actually came to closer to 18 ounces.
Sort that out, Starbucks. Where's my 2 ounces?
Joe: Now I'm going to measure the venti coffee,
which should be 20 ounces,
minus a few sips.
Wait.
I came prepared.
Whoa, come on!
I did not drink that much.
Oh, Starbucks!
That's not, no, that's not even two,
that's, like, an ounce.
Harry: The cold coffees in the UK come in three sizes.
The tall.
Joe: The tall,
12 ounces.
Harry: The grande.
Joe: We got the grande.
Harry: And venti.
Joe: Here's where things get kinda weird.
Our venti iced is 24 ounces,
and we have another size up, trenti, right?
Producer: Trenta.
Joe: Trenta.
And that is
30 ounces.
Harry: So, a UK cold venti is exactly 20 ounces.
Joe: Yeah, 21.
I thought they said this was supposed to be 24.
"How many
fluid ounces
venti
iced?"
24.
And how much is it, 21?
Starbucks. With the ice, you still don't have enough.
Harry: With Subway in the UK,
you can get sandwiches in four different sizes.
Firstly, we have toasted bites,
a 6-inch sub,
a foot-long sub,
and then
you can get a platter.
Joe: And in the US, we have three sizes,
the 6-inch,
the foot-long,
there you go.
For you and your team,
[groans]
the big boy.
Party platter.
The old Subway platypus.
Harry: Now, in the UK, a platter looks like this.
What they do is they make four foot-long sandwiches,
then they cut those into fours,
so you're left with 16 pieces,
each of which is 3 inches.
Joe: And for the party platter here,
they take five sandwiches,
cutting them into three pieces,
giving you 15 sandwiches total.
In addition, in the US, you can also get yourself
a 3-foot-long party sub.
[laughing]
Look at this thing!
This is ridiculous!
Uh, three feet,
so that is,
what's that in...
what do you got in the UK?
That's 17 meters?
I have no idea.
Yeah.
Harry: If you're a fan of Subway's cookies,
in the UK, those come in three sizes.
One cookie,
three cookies,
or 12 cookies.
Joe: In the US Subway, you can get
a single cookie,
a dozen cookies,
right like that,
or,
the
[grunts] hang on! Keep rolling.
The
36-cookie platter.
Booyah!
[laughing]
I'm like in Vegas, baby! All in!