It was a spoof so prescient it backfired – hundreds of fast food fiends angrily trolling a KFC tutorial on how to make a “clean-living burger”.
If the halved raw cauliflower serving as a bun didn’t give it away, the spiralised chicken breast and – wait for it – “crushed ice relish” should have revealed the almighty joke.
The inspiration was however clearer – our chirpy, well-spoken chef-guru a seeming imitation of the United Kingdom’s reigning healthy eating queen Ella Woodward, the social media sensation behind the Deliciously Ella cookbooks and brand.
Now Ella has hit back, accusing the fast food chain of being “a tiny bit irresponsible” in its mocking of healthy eating – and the ad’s un-subtle message to chuck out the vegetables and instead munch on KFC’s latest 735-calorie burger.
Talking exclusively to The National during a recent visit to the Dubai Food Festival, Ella weighed in on the parody for the first time, offering a mature, measured and utterly sensible response to the fast food behemoth’s shameless ribbing.
If it hit a nerve, it did not show – but as Woodward, 25, rightfully points out, eating healthily is no laughing matter. Here’s what Ella had to say...
“If I’m totally honest, I love parodies, and I don’t think anyone should take eating well too seriously – life needs to be taken with a pinch of salt – but I think there’s also a balance to be struck there, and the burger they were cooking looked foul.
“I’m not saying you should never have KFC, but we are at a stage where we have a global obesity problem, a real childhood obesity problem, an epic problem with [the UK’s] NHS, and we need to eat a little less KFC and a little bit more cauliflower. If we keep showing it like this – ‘losers only eat this’ – then how are you going to get young kids to eat their vegetables?
“We’ve got to change the perception a little bit, and to me there’s something a tiny bit irresponsible in being like ‘chuck the vegetables, let’s have everything deep fried’. [KFC] has already done it’s promotion and people think it’s cool, so we need to promote other food as well that has been left a little bit behind.
“You should be able to make light of anything, I don’t think anything should be so serious. People shouldn’t feel bad for eating a burger – it’s about finding something sustainable that’s enjoyable for you.
“But equally, if you make fun of healthy eating all the time it’s going to be hard to make people do it, and we do need people to charge a few of their habits.”