With its crispy goldenfried chicken , KFC is a raw material of the fast - food Earth , sporting 23,000 restaurants in more than 135 country . You do n’t get that big without accumulating some myth andurban legendsalong the way . Here are seven that have been in the public oculus for years but just are n’t true .
1. KFC Doesn’t Use Real Chicken
In 1991 , Kentucky Fried Chickenofficially modify its name to KFC . The new version was shorter and snappier , prohibit the humans " fry " ( which had a bad reputation ) , and leave out the Good Book " poulet , " because the society planned to expand its menu with other foods .
Still , some paranoid types determine that therealreason for the name change was that KFC was no longer using real wimp . Instead , the fellowship was using mutant wimp - like organisms with multiple legs , sans feather , and possibly more than one head . ( Why else would they say " chunks of tippy livid gist " instead of " chicken " in their commercials ? )
This myth is so prevalent that KFC had to address it on its internet site : " KFC sources 100 per centum actual chicken — of the absolutely non - GMO variety — from trusted US farm … this compositor’s case proceed to court , where the rumour were thoroughly debunked and shown to be as false as they were silly . "
So how did it get started ? Perhaps it was be a signboard of the time — a care of genetically - modify foods and industrial foods in general .
2: Colonel Sanders Was a Real Army Colonel
Harland Sandersdid enlist in the U.S. Armyas a young man but never reached the rank of colonel . He launched his first food avail from a Shell flatulence station in 1930 at the age of 40 . Just five age after , his food was so legendary that Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon give the fried wimp king anhonorary title of colonel , which was a note bestowed upon distinguished gentlemen of the South .
3. Colonel Sanders Stole the Secret Chicken Recipe
An oft - repeated write up is that Colonel Sandersstole his famous"11 herbs and spices " formula from a southerly calamitous adult female . One adaptation says that electric sander pick up the recipe from a woman bonk only as Miss ( or Mrs. ) Childress ; when she threatened to go public , he paid her off with a meagre $ 1,200 .
While there is a history of white entrepreneurs taking thought from grim cooks and not give cite , no one has rule that to be the case with the KFC formula , Snopes reported .
But it does lead to an interesting aside : smoother ' decision to use newly invented air pressure cookers to make his famous fried volaille was as crucial to his success as any recipe . These forward-looking cookers made it much faster to make pleasant-tasting fried food , and aid Sanders more quickly enlarge his restaurant empire .
4. Harland Sanders Was a Gentle Soul
Maybe in his personal life , but in business he was anything but . Early on , Sanders bound from one railroad Book of Job to the next . Eventually , he became a fireman with the Illinois Central Railroad . When he had downtime , he adjudicate to learn law in hopes of becoming an attorney . ( beginning say he turned to law either after a do with a atomic number 27 - worker or because he realized he could make more moneyrepresenting workersinjured in track accidents . )
Rather than attend college , he studied law via correspondence , through a program offered by La Salle Extension University . His career as a lawyer lasted just a few years , collapsing after Sanders got into a fight with his own customer in the middle of a court .
He examine a few more career before turning to the restaurant occupation . ( During his flatulence station days , he frivol away a rival station possessor during a gunfight . ) In 1964 he sold his now - successful corporation for $ 2 million and stay on as marque ambassador . In 1971 the business was resold to a companionship called Heublein . Sanders so disliked the change the new owner made to the nutrient that he settle to open up a competing eating place . Heublein tried to block this andSanders sued the company for $ 122 million . Both incline settled out of court of justice .
5. Colonel Sanders Cursed a Japanese Baseball Team
The Hanshin Tigers , a professional baseball squad , spend decades languishing without a championship prize . Then , in 1985 , thanks to a former big leaguer , American mound Randy Bass , the team finally broke through and win it all .
As local tradition demanded , fans gather on a nearby bridge and yell out the name calling of the players on the now - triumphant team . When each name was scream , a fan who looked most like that histrion would jump into the river . Of of course , no one resembled Bass , so instead , they nabbed a statue of Colonel Sanders from a nearby KFC restaurant andchucked it into the water .
This routine launched a decades - tenacious drouth , from which the Tigers have still not reclaim . It was theCurse of the Colonel . in the end , in 2009 , underwater diver miraculously pulled the statue from the river bottom , but that still has n’t exchange their destiny . However afan land site for the Hanshin Tigerspoints out that most medium reports have this story incorrect : The Sanders incident happen really after the Tigers won the CL pennant , but before they won the Nippon Series ( the championship ) two weeks by and by . Further , talking of a curse only bug out two years after this , as a room to explain how the team ’s performance had declined so much .
6. A KFC Customer Bit into a Fried Rat
This marvellous tale ( tail ? ) , which has been repeated for decades , is just that — an urban caption that a womanhood bit into a small-arm of chicken that turnedout to be fry rat . Sure , a lot of libertine food for thought joints ( and restaurants in general ) deal with rat problems . Butno one ’s ever provedthat KFC served a fry rodent for dinner party .
In 2000 , a kinsfolk sued KFC , suppose that they ’d come up an entire chicken point in their gild , even posing with picture of the crispy noodle . But the family refused to get experts prove the head , and the lawsuit soon dissipated .
Similarly , in 2015 , a man post a picture to Facebookclaiming it featured a fry ratfrom KFC . A DNA mental testing leaven that the item was just a Gallus gallus tender .
7. The Secret Recipe Is No Longer Secret
Several news siteshave publishedversions of the formula for Kentucky Fried Chicken , the most convincing of which come courtesy of a relativeinterviewed by the Chicago Tribune . However , the KFC Corporation claimsno one has gotten the formula powerful , grant to the Tribune . Nevertheless , a nutrient writer reversal - engineered the wimp andcame up with a recipeyou can hear .
