Junk Food Roundup: Everything is Absurdly Unhealthy

By C.A. Pinkham | June 21, 2014 | 6:17pm

In Depth

From cheesy-stuffed Doritos to McDonald’s varied douchery to an unexpected and ironic Velveeta recall, Kitchenette has you covered for all your ludicrously unhealthy food news needs. By the way: that image above is a burger with deep-fried Hot Pockets for buns. Go home, PYT, you are drunk.

7-11 in Dallas is introducing something called Doritos Loaded in a few weeks. From what I can tell, they’re basically Doritos-flavored triangles filled with nacho cheese, and I’m pretty sure I gained two lbs just typing that sentence. They’re using the slogan “Melt-mazing,” which is actually great for me since I needed to find a way to meet my Daily Recommended Dosage of cringe in perpetuity. Doritos Loaded hit 7-11’s nationwide on July 2, and you can find them in the hot foods case next to the pizza that looks like the physical embodiment of the loss of innocence and the Big Bites that have been on the rotating grill since we only had one member of the Bush family to regret.

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Everyone’s favorite Philadelphia burger mad scientists PYT are back, this time with the monstrosity listed at the top of this page. As noted above, that is a burger with deep fried Philly Steak and Cheese Hot Pockets for buns. I have to hand it to PYT — I don’t know of any other restaurant that would look at the Double Down and go “that’s a good idea, but it’s not NEARLY unhealthy enough.” The burger is also topped with both American Cheese and something PYT is calling “truffle-drizzled” Cheese Wiz, a phrase I cannot believe any human being could possibly say with a straight face. “Yes, it’s over the top. Yes, we are a little ashamed,” says PYT. Well, the exploding PBR burger didn’t do it, so now we know what finally drives PYT to embarrassment, at least.

Kraft is recalling 260 cases of Velveeta because someone forgot to put a supposedly key preservative (sorbic acid) in them. So, basically, we’re seeing Velveeta get recalled because it’s not quite artificial enough. That rumbling sound is nothing to worry about; it’s just the build-up to the universe imploding from a massive irony detonation. Kraft acknowledges that while potential spoilage and food poisoning from these cases (shipped to WalMarts in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) is unlikely, you’re still talking about a product that looks like it should set off every Geiger counter within a 15-mile radius, so maybe a bit of extra precaution isn’t a bad thing, here.

McDonald’s is guilty of a couple of huge dick moves this week. The first was settled out of court after a Lyons, New York McDonald’s franchise fired an employee for reporting a gas leak. A part-time minimum wage worker repeatedly tried to report the leak to his supervisors, who ignored him — so he went to the Lyons Fire Department (for those keeping track, this is the thing you have an ethical responsibility to do in that situation). At literally the same time as the firefighters were examining the leak itself, two supervisors fired the employee, because in addition to being dickheads, they have the intellectual capacity of paste — New York has a common (but not universal in the US) labor law preventing any employer from retaliating against an employee who reports a safety issue.

Under the terms of the settlement, the employee will get $10,000, which actually seems like a pretty modest sum, all things considered. I know I should technically be using the word “allegedly” with this story, but fuck it, that’s a pretty cut and dried abuse of power by the douchenozzle supervisors, and good for the employee for making them pay for it.

The second McDonald’s story is much more of a head-scratcher: the fast food corporation apparently put out a casting call for a Vegas show called Hunger in the Night, a supposed zombie-themed musical. A whole bunch of people showed up to audition, many of them desperate for work and hoping this would be their big shot. Unfortunately, the whole thing was a fake designed to get people to act like zombies for a dumbass web ad reminding people that many McDonald’s locations are open 24 hours — and anyone who auditioned signed a release that gave McDonald’s permission to do whatever the hell it wanted with their likeness. While McDonald’s hasn’t technically done anything illegal here, they’ve definitely done something MASSIVELY douchey just to avoid having to pay actor contracts and ad residuals.

Christ, McDonald’s, no wonder everyone hates you.