Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy

-Oh, my God, they are so cute. - Yeah, there's our little guys.

Oh, my God!

Rah, rah, a chicken!

It is the most farmed land animal on the planet.

It's seen as lean, green, and healthy.

The industry's doing everything they can to make it irresistible.

Seventy-eight billion chickens are slaughtered annually.

The chicken industry is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars.

And it's driven by our love of cheap, delicious, fast food fried chicken.

London, make some fucking noise, man!

There's two things I can't live without.

Making people laugh, and chicken.

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Let me tell about the chicken shop.

Do you wanna know a good chicken shop?

They got bulletproof glass.

You will die for the chicken. Let me tell you that for free.

Roasted, curried, jerked…

But my all-time favorite,

and here comes a Black stereotype in three, two…

Fried chicken.

Since my first bite 30 years ago,

fried chicken has skyrocketed.

We're in our chicken shop era, and people are obsessed.

Chicken is seen as the green, healthy option.

It's not.

Right now, we have 36% of primary school children

considered obese and overweight.

There are warnings of the huge environmental impact of poultry farming.

Shut up, man.

Look, I'm a stand-up comedian who's loved this dish since I was a kid,

and wants to know what is going on.

So, I'm gonna do an experiment,

and put my health on the line.

Twenty-eight days eating nothing but fast food fried chicken.

I'm going across the Atlantic, you know.

I'm going from South London to the Deep South of the USA.

Damn, man!

I wanna find out what this food is doing to our bodies and our minds.

Oh, man.

And if this bird really is leading us down a path of destruction.

Chicken for breakfast.

I think there's just things that people can't imagine,

because no one can get inside.

Oh, that stinks, man!

They don't want people asking questions.

We're all living a science experiment

and the industry's literally killing us.

Oh, man.

I'm eating this chicken and I'm going mad.

I don't think you realize,

I don't do stuff like this, you know.

Aight. Boom, first meal.

Boom, I'm gonna go in with a chicken sandwich.

-Chicken sandwich with cheese… -Thank you, my guy.

-…side of gravy. -Appreciate it. Day one, meal one.

Eleven o'clock in the morning.

I feel a bit dirty.

The experiment is me eating fried chicken for a month.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Put a bit of the sauce in there.

And there's a part of me like, "That's great! Bring on the wings." Like…

Just dipping it in gravy.

Whoever discovered that you can eat the wing of this bird…

It's up there with the person that discovered milk,

'cause there's someone out there that went…

And went… "Hey, taste that."

Genius.

That was righteous.

Let me not mess around, I'm actually buzzing right now.

You see how I'm just smiling? That was really good.

Nice. First one in the can.

Boom. One down, 83 to go.

And for the next month, no gym, no home-cooked food,

and every one of my meals will be fast food fried chicken.

But lucky for me, there's a lot more choice now than ever before.

Ah, when I was a kid in the '90s,

Britain was a land of the fish and chip shop.

Then, along came fried chicken.

I only remember one chicken shop growing up.

Now, one road alone in South London has more than 20!

In the UK, there's over 6,000.

In central London, you've got your more gourmet ones.

You know, you'll have, like, an import. You know, something from the US.

Then the further you go out,

they don't got names anymore.

DFC…

MFC…

We know the FC is "fried chicken," but what is the M?

What is the M? What, what? See, PFC.

It must be "Perfect Fried Chicken" with… It's got doner kebabs.

There's probably another one round the corner.

KHF, what the fuck is that?

This bird is big business, boy.

In the UK, every day we spend over £12 million on fried chicken.

That's like a Premier League signing!

Now, this isn't just about me eating fried chicken. No, no, no.

I want to learn everything about it.

And it wouldn't be a Netflix documentary

without some experts in nicely lit rooms explaining things I don't know.

And… action.

We're in an era of the love affair with fried chicken.

It is the fastest-growing fast food meat product in the world.

Wingstop's come to the ends, you get me?

And definitely, it's being driven by social media.

-Lemon pepper. -Lemon pepper. Cheers.

Celebrities love it.

If I head onto TikTok,

I find people dancing in chicken shops or school kids congregating outside them.

These are the youth centers for today.

So we're coming to the back with the prep.

There's pulse, there's excitement.

Oh, my God! Eddie gave me a KFC jacket!

And that's the trickery here. It's cool and edgy, but affordable.

But actually, there's so much behind the scenes

that I just don't think brands want to be reminding,

or even educating, the consumer of.

Hmm. All right, Kate.

Anyway, lunch.

- Can I sit here? -Yeah, of course.

Thank you.

How often do you lot come to this chicken shop?

- She came yesterday. -Yeah.

So what if I told you that I have to eat this food

every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

You're gonna die.

-I'm gonna die? -Yeah.

-Just for eating chicken? -Yeah, but every day.

Come on, big ups, big ups, eating chicken every day.

Die? What in the six-seven is she talking about?

In the words of Craig David, re-e-wind.

Before I started this epic chicken marathon,

I went to see a top doctor.

-So, if you get on the scale… -Okay.

You stand up straight.

I am firmly team chicken.

I love me a bit of Nando's. You can almost taste…

I've even done content and voiceover work

for leading chains McDonald's and Nando's.

You can't test my loyalty, bruv.

There'll be some people watching this like,

"You're in the fried chicken matrix."

And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I am, bruv." It's delicious. Let's not fuck around.

There's no other food you can feel with a bucket. A bucket of burgers?

I'm not feeling that.

But a bucket of fried chicken?

Growing up, we would have that as a treat. And that felt like wealth.

I remember when my mum got a bucket of KFC

that used to come with a Viennetta.

We was like, "We have made it! Don't ever talk to us again."

It's gonna be a sharp prick now.

So currently, do you have any health issues?

-Not that I know of. No, no, no. - Great. Now, family history.

My mom has diabetes.

Type 2?

Yeah. My grandad had diabetes as well.

-Oh, okay, so it runs in her family. -Yeah.

Big breath in.

- I'm 37 now. - Good.

You start thinking about your loved ones, the people you have around you.

You think about your health.

And out! Push, push, push, push.

I'm intrigued to see what the effects are gonna be on my body, yeah.

Your liver is beautiful.

-It's really… -Really?

- Yeah, it's amazing. -Uh-uh!

And the diabetes test is entirely nonexistent for you,

-which is really great. -That's amazing.

-You are a fit, healthy man… -Oh, wow.

…and I wish you the absolute best.

So what do you think about me doing this experiment?

Well…

I think if I were you, I wouldn't do it.

Okay.

Motion detected at the front door.

My chicken's here.

Someone is at the front door.

-Thank you, boss. -Here you go.

Chicken for breakfast.

Fried chicken is popular because it is delicious.

There's no two ways about it.

And there is nothing wrong with having a fried chicken on occasion

if it is cooked at home.

However, we're talking about fast-food chains

that sell ultra-processed chicken.

Everything is being treated with chemicals,

and it is made to really taste good.

That burger felt so good.

I am not one of these,

"I'm a vegan. I'm gonna stand up for the rights of the chicken."

Two mini fillet chicken burgers.

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Nah, bruv. Listen, there's enough of them for everyone, you know.

Thank God they can't fly.

Eating ultra-processed food for a whole month

might sound extreme.

However, it's been estimated

that more than 50% of people's diets in the UK

is made up of ultra-processed food.

Mmm.