Harry Kersh: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between Wingstop in the UK and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In the UK, we can get wing portions in four sizes.
Eight wings,
10 wings,
12 wings,
or a Flavour Craver wing platter,
which comes with 24 wings and three dips.
US Wingstop, you can get your wings
in 10,
15,
ooh,
20,
[grunts]
30!
Hang on. And...
30.
Not enough, you say? I agree.
Wingstop also does wings in orders of...
50,
[laughing] 75,
and, of course,
100 chicken wings.
I'm in heaven right now.
Bury me in these wings.
I'm going in.
Eh, I could do better, but we gotta move on.
Sean Evans, I'm coming for you, buddy.
So, the portion sizes might be pretty different,
but what about the wings themselves?
We're gonna weigh 10 plain wings in the UK
and do the same in the US
to see how they match up.
So, 10 plain wings in the UK came to 290 grams,
which is an average of 29 grams per wing.
Joe: Oh, way higher, dude.
360 grams.
I needed my calculator app to determine
what 360 divided by 10 is.
And it is, in fact, 36 grams.
- Wow! - So our average
is 36 grams per wing here in the US.
What about chicken tenders?
Well, in the UK, those come in two portion sizes:
as a portion of three
or as a portion of five.
At a Wingstop in the US, you can get your chicken tenders
in orders of four, seven,
15, 20, and 30.
Yes!
I don't know what maniac is at a Wingstop
and gets chicken tenders instead of wings.
I mean, I get it if you're taking your, like,
10-year-old there.
Let's weigh five chicken tenders here in the US.
So, five plain tenders in the UK weighs 230 grams.
200 and what?
Way over 300 on this one.
We're over 300,
and they try to pass this off as a tender.
Bigger chunks of meat over here in the US.
Bigger tender chunks of meat.
What about a side of fries?
Well, in the UK, these come in two sizes.
Regular
and large.
And in the US, our Wingstop fries
also come in two sizes.
Regular
and large.
How do those look?
Harry: We're gonna weigh them both to see what they come to.
[laughing]
That's not a good look for fries.
How do I get this back in?
Yep, also a brick.
Also a brick.
Harry: And the large portion came to 255 grams.
Our regular is bigger than your large, UK.
OK.
Oh, lost a fry.
400 grams.
Fountain drinks in the UK come in one size.
It's 22 ounces.
But, unfortunately, we weren't able to get one today.
Wingstop in the US, you can get
your fountain drinks in two sizes,
20 ounce
and
32 ounce.
The Wingstop we went to
did not have any 32-ounce cups.
Dips in the UK only come in one size,
and it's regular.
We're gonna weigh a cup of ranch
to see how much we get.
Dips in the US come in two sizes,
regular and this absurd tub.
Look at this.
First we're gonna weigh this,
the regular size.
Now the big boy.
I couldn't even guess how much this container weighs.
Before I do this?
Closer to 300.
This is heavy.
This is like a half a bottle of ranch.
[laughing]
Bro!
It is 440.
440 grams of ranch.
So, fun fact about me,
I've never actually had ranch before.
This is not a common dressing in the UK.
It's just not really on menus.
We prefer, like, a garlic mayonnaise or a ketchup.
So I'm about to try my first-ever ranch.
See how it goes.
[chicken crunching]
Hmm. OK. OK.
I don't know if Wingstop ranch differs to
the classic ranch you might find in the States,
but it's nice.
If you want, like, a kind of cooling thing
with a similar effect to mayo in that regard,
but, like, a little bit more tang, bit more seasoning.
Yeah, you guys are doing it well.
The biggest thing on the menu in the UK is this,
the Flavour Craver wing platter.
You get 24 wings, three dips, and no other sides.
All for a price of 22.50 pounds.
Biggest single menu item at the Wingstop in the US
is this, the 100-wing party pack.
OK, obviously you start with 100 wings.
You can get up to six different flavors.
I just got the same one.
Four orders of large fries.
Four orders of veggie sticks.
And eight dips.
This is supposed to feed 13 people.
Or, like, you and three of your friends.
You can get boneless or bone-in wings.
If you go boneless it's $94.39,
and if you go all bone-in wings it's $104.19.
I gotta say, I'm generally a drums guy over a flats guy.
I think it's just the shape is great.
It's just like a meat lollipop.
And also it feels like you get more meat
on there than you do on a flat.
No, Harry, no.
Drums are not good.
Flats are way better.
You can pull out both bones.
You get all the meat off of it.
For the drum, it's way harder to get the meat off.
Don't be deceived by that shape. It's less meat.
Flats.
Flats!
I have a flat head.
[funky music]
Here is everything you will only find
on the menu at a UK Wingstop.
And here are all the exclusive items
you can get at a US Wingstop.
We'll start with the chicken.
There's actually one flavor of wing
that we can get that you guys can't,
which is this one,
it's Brazilian citrus pepper.
I'm gonna try the Brazilian citrus pepper
using my patented wing-eating technique.
Get one of the bones out.
And then a little meat lollipop.
Mm.
Nice little freshness from the citrus,
kick from the pepper.
Not bad.
So, for exclusive wing flavors,
you can get these two,
the Bayou BBQ and the lemon hot.
We can also get any Wingstop flavor on the side.
I don't know if you can get that in the UK.
Another thing you can do at the US Wingstop
is you can customize your fries
or you can get regular or extra seasoning.
So I got an extra seasoning of a seasoning
you guys don't have in the UK,
which is the garlic Parmesan.
Look at the seasoning on this.
I mean, they just dusted this thing, right?
You know exactly what I'm gonna do.
Yeah, yeah!
These are Louisiana Voodoo fries.
They are topped with a cheese sauce,
ranch, and Cajun seasoning.
Our exclusive fry option is this.
Sweet potato fries.
These come in sizes of regular or large,
and you can also get them in the same seasonings
as the regular fries.
In my opinion, you guys aren't
missing out on much with these.
I just always think that sweet potato fries
are worse than regular fries.
They always cost more, they always come out soggy.
It's just not worth it.
Just stay with the regular.
Outside of meat and potato,
you can also get Cajun fried corn.
Am I saying that right?
It's fried?
You can also get freshly baked rolls.
Bread, baby. Bread.
We also have one other exclusive side, which is this.
It's a honey mustard slaw.
We can also get booze from our Wingstops.
This comes in the form of two types of beer.
And usually we would be able to get two types of wine,
however, due to a reduced menu,
currently they are not serving them.
The three drink options you can get in the US are,
oddly enough, sweetened and unsweetened tea.
I don't know why we have tea and the UK does not.
And also you can get this
52-fluid-ounce Simply Lemonade.
And finally, in the UK,
you can finish off your meal with some churros.
These come in portions of either six or 10.
You have two crumb options,
including Oreo or Lotus Biscoff.
And then you can choose from one of two sauces,
either a sweet milk
or some dulce de leche caramel.
Mm.
Delicious.
What about desserts?
Here's one you can get in the US
and not in the UK at a Wingstop,
the triple chocolate chunk brownie.
Did I say that in the right order?
Producer: Uh-huh. Joe: Fantastic.
I'm now gonna do something really stupid,
which is attempt to eat the hottest wing
on the Wingstop menu,
which is the Atomic wing.
These come with gloves,
just to avoid getting it on your skin
and then getting it in your eyes.
I'm not good with spice, one thing to note.
Ah, man.
I don't really want to do this,
but, hey, for the content.
Cheers.
Yep, it's immediate.
Oh, man.
Deep breaths, Harry, deep breaths.
If Harry's doing it, I'm doing it too.
This is the hottest?
I'm not a tough guy with the heat.
This is not that hot.
Yeah.
It's not that hot.
Yeah, I'm starting to feel it.
Ugh.
Now my tongue's kind of starting to hurt.
What's what they do on the, on "Hot Ones," when --
[coughs]
[dramatic music]
Ugh, yeah.
Unfortunately, Wingstop doesn't disclose
any of its nutritional information in the UK.
They do disclose the nutritional information
in the US, however.
And there are some pretty interesting takeaways.
OK, let's start with this.
The classic meal for one, an eight-piece combo.
I got four hot wings, four lemon pepper,
regular fry, dip, regular Coke.
This meal contains a total of 1,595 calories,
along with a lot of your daily fat and sodium allowance.
Interestingly, if you get the same meal
but boneless wings instead,
the calories go up to 1,711,
roughly a 7% increase.
Even more interestingly, the sodium in the meal
rockets up to 5,258 milligrams,
which is 228% of your daily allowance.
So it looks like boneless wings
are way saltier than bone-in wings,
but they do contain slightly less fat.
What's the most calorific wing at Wingstop in the US?
That would be the boneless garlic Parmesan wing,
which clocks in at 112 calories for just one.
The saltiest wing on the menu
is the boneless original hot wing.
Now, it's less calorific than the garlic Parmesan,
but just five of these
is your entire daily sodium allowance.
The tenders at Wingstop are, as you might expect,
more calorific than the wings.
The most calorific flavor in the US?
Garlic Parmesan.
Where have I heard that before?
That's not the saltiest tender.
That crown goes to the Cajun spice tender,
with 775 milligrams of sodium.
Just three of these is your entire daily allowance.
I didn't come here to not eat chicken tenders.
Mm.
[peppy music]
What about the dips?
Well, the least healthy dip on the menu is this.
It's honey mustard.
Just a regular portion of this in the US
contains 367 calories, 33 grams of fat,
5 grams of saturated fat,
682 milligrams of sodium,
and a slightly alarming 17 grams of sugar.
As for the rest of the menu,
you really wanna watch out for the fries.
The most calorific single menu item
on a Wingstop menu is a large portion
of the Louisiana Voodoo fries.
This serving alone, 910 calories,
which is almost half of your daily allowance.
If you're looking to cut down on the sodium,
you might want to avoid the Buffalo ranch fries.
They're slightly less calorific
than the Louisiana Voodoo fries;
however, they contain 2,880 milligrams of sodium.
That's 125% of your entire daily allowance.
In summary, Wingstop,
maybe not the healthiest fast-food chain.
If you're looking to cut back on your sodium,
definitely skip the boneless wings
and maybe stick to regular fries,
and not the ones with these gross toppings.
Now, sadly, along with the nutrition,
Wingstop UK also doesn't disclose its ingredients.
Wingstop also does not disclose its ingredients in the US.
[crickets chirping]
So, what do we know about what goes into the chicken?
Well, for starters, in the UK,
the chicken is not organic and not free-range.
All the chicken they use in the UK is also halal,
which means it's suitable for Muslim people to eat.
Now, it is unclear if the US chickens
are free-range or organic.
All Wingstops say that they expect their chicken supplier
to conform with USDA, FDA,
state, and local regulations.
However, they do not specify a grading.
So for all we know it could be grade C chicken,
which can be misshapen, poorly fleshed,
and, Jesus,
and with no limit on the size, number of areas,
or intensity of discolorations and flesh bruises.
Wow, I wish I knew that a few minutes ago.
In better news, the fact that
they refer to their tenders as "tenders"
legally means that they have to at least
be made of whole cuts of chicken breast
and might be actual chicken tenderloins,
which are in the inner pectoral muscles
of the chicken breast.
And that's pretty much all we can glean
from the information that's publicly available.
Why are you so sneaky, Wingstop?
Is it because you know we'll eat it regardless?
Correct.
Ooh, I f---ed up.
I should've waited before I went into that second wing.
[laughs]
[exhales]