How fried chicken gobbled up the High Street

...with dire results for Britain’s health

COLONEL Harland Sanders and his imitators have a lot to answer for. There are few more tasty or efficient ways of injecting calories into the human body than ‘good ole’ southern fried chicken — accompanied by the obligatory side order of French fries — and nowadays you can find it just about anywhere.

Fried chicken shops have exploded on to the modern British High Street. Not just KFC, of course, but a whole range of competitors of widely varying quality. The grottier outlets lend an air of seediness and decline to the thoroughfares of many our cities and towns, sharing customers with those other symptoms of modern urban deprivation: pound shops, betting shops and payday loan operators.

But it’s what fried-chicken shops sell — not how they look — that should worry us. They offer almost a day’s worth of calories in a single meal, and in the most damaging form possible: chicken caked in batter or fried bread crumbs, deep-fried in oil containing lethal trans-fats responsible for clogged arteries and heart disease.

Fried chicken is playing its part in the obesity epidemic now overtaking Britain, and the increase in associated disorders such as type 2 diabetes.

Preston, administrative seat of Lancashire, positively clucks with fried-chicken shops. True to their product, they clog one of the city’s main arteries, lining either side of Church Street, an extension of Fishergate, the city’s main High Street.

Culinary history was made on Fishergate in May 1965 when it witnessed the opening of Britain’s first branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken, sandwiched between a Wimpy Bar and a branch of Timothy Whites chemists. Britons were fast-food virgins then. But not for long.

Waddling

Walk along Church Street today and you are confronted by a dazzling array of fried-chicken emporia exuding the smell of hot fat and begging for custom.

There’s Roosterz, Ranchers, Mr Joe’s Fried Chicken and its neighbour Joe Junior, as well as Chicken Ranch, Chickin Joint, Dixie Fried Chicken and Pizza King (don’t worry, it sells fried chicken). Oh yes, and Miami Chicken, Sando’s and the innocently-named but equally deep-fried Refreshment Village. Next to these establishments, the local KFC looks positively upmarket.

A chicken sandwich meal including fizzy drink can cost as little as 99p in these fast-food outlets — and contain 1,400 or more calories, three-quarters of the recommended daily intake for a woman and two thirds of that for a man.

And if you don’t want to expend a few pounds waddling down to town, some of these places deliver straight to the home.

This fried-chicken bazaar has helped earn Preston’s High Street the dubious title of most unhealthy in the country, according to last month’s league table from the Royal Society for Public Health.

‘I used to live in a flat in the middle of Preston and within a hundred yards each way there were at least 20 takeaways,’ says Deborah Whittle, a Prestonian born and bred. ‘Fried chicken, kebabs, pizza — there were no healthier options at all, and they were far too convenient. Even when fast-food places shut down new ones pop up straight away.’

Though she tries to buy ‘proper food’, Miss Whittle admits she is no model of healthy living. ‘Obviously not,’ she says, referring to her weight. ‘It’s far too easy (to buy fast food), too convenient. If I’m on the way home from work and hungry, it’s simpler to get something pre-cooked.’

It is a scene replicated the length and breadth of the country. A Cambridge University study, using Norfolk as an example, suggests there was a 45 per cent increase in the number of fast-food outlets of all kinds in Britain between 1990 and 2008.

And in recent years, fried chicken has been leading the charge — sales grew by 36 per cent from 2003 to 2008, outstripping other foods in that period.

Today, London has more than 8,000 fried-chicken shops and young people are the heaviest users — no surprise then, that one in three 11-year-olds in the capital is overweight.

The fastest rate of growth has occurred in deprived areas, with studies showing a tight correlation between the number of takeaways in a district and how poor it is.

Britain is now in danger of imitating the U.S. in the spread of so- called ‘food deserts’ — areas where access to affordable, healthy food is severely limited. America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama, has fought a long campaign to eradicate these nutritional wastelands, but with limited success.

And it is not just a question of worrying about our waistlines. Research by the University of Leicester suggests that your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and obesity can be directly related to the density of fastfood outlets where you live.

Obesity

‘The results are quite alarming and have major implications for moves to limit the number of fast- food outlets in more deprived areas,’ says Professor Kamlesh Khunti, one of the authors of the report.

Dr Patrice Carter, the report’s lead author, says the link observed between the number of fast-food outlets and obesity and type 2 diabetes should be no surprise.

‘Fast-food is high in total fat, trans-fatty acids and sodium, portion sizes have increased two to fivefold over the past 50 years. A single fast-food meal provides approximately 1,400 calories. Furthermore, fast-food outlets often provide sugar-rich drinks.’

Longer working hours, fewer stay-at-home partners and a corresponding decline in cooking at home are major factors in the growth of fast food.

‘ Findings suggest families doing the most cooking at home tend to have the healthiest diets and those doing the most cooking tend to be the ones with a stay-at-home partner,’ says Dr Pablo Monsivais, of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research at Cambridge. ‘But there is not that much research on this.

‘Has cooking become a middleclass pursuit? Or, like sewing to repair clothes, something we are forgetting how to do? We don’t know. But what we do know is that cooking time has been going down across all social classes.’

One factor in the growth of the fried-chicken industry is the relative cheapness of starting such a business. Premises tend to be small and sited in low-prestige and thus low-rent areas, but with lots of competitors around, owners are under constant pressure to provide value for money.

Hence a kind of deep-fried ‘arms race’ in which shops offer ever bigger and fattier meals at ever-lower prices. For people living in or near to poverty, the fried-chicken shop is tempting.

But the health message is getting through — here and there.

‘We have introduced the grill section, which is more healthy,’ says Arsalaan Khan, proprietor of Miami Chicken in Preston. ‘There are people who like the old stuff, though. Especially after the pub.’

Still, if you think Preston’s bad, just look a little further afield. ‘I’ve got shops in Leeds, Bradford and Blackburn and — no disrespect — people are a lot bigger in Bradford and Leeds than Preston.’

Maybe that is because they are lying on their sofas after their seventh home delivery chicken burger meal of the week.

It is difficult, however, to know exactly how many fried-chicken shops have colonised Britain, because they do not form a separate category of restaurant in council planning.

Meanwhile, local authority restrictions that would have earmarked premises for specific uses have been eased over recent years, in an effort to encourage businesses to move into High Streets threatened by the internet and out-of-town shopping.

Emergency

So, should we declare war on fried chicken and limit the number of shops?

The law governing such outlets is grey and councils are reluctant to act for fear of legal challenges. But some have imposed restrictions on new shops, particularly in areas around schools. For example, St Helen’s Council has imposed a 400-yard exclusion zone around primary and secondary schools and sixth-form colleges.

Birmingham City Council has declared that only one in ten premises in any shopping area should be takeaways, after a warning that the city is facing a ‘public health emergency’ due to obesity. But some councillors have argued that takeaways are preferable to empty shops.

‘Looking back in time, this country was a healthier country and part of the reason is that our environment has become less healthy,’ says Dr Monsivais.

‘If your High Street is full of shops selling unhealthy fried food, it is more likely you will eat that food. We should consider as a country how we want our streets to look and what regulation we need.’

Southern fried chicken will have been with us in Britain for half a century when the Preston KFC celebrates its 50th anniversary next month. The South may have lost the American Civil War, but when it comes to expanding our waistlines, no one beats Dixie.