Get yourself some free low-carb grilled chicken at KFC on Monday

FREE?! Did somebody say FREE?! Yeppers, they sure did and pulling a page out of the Denny’s marketing playbook this year we’ve got good ole Kentucky Fried Chicken–er, I mean, KFC–to thank. I know, I know…what can you eat at KFC that’s worth being free? After all, don’t they put all that high-carb breading crap on their chicken which totally ruins an otherwise wonderfully low-carb food? Ahhhh, that was so pre-2009 because now they have introduced a brand new product to their menu–it’s Kentucky GRILLED Chicken, baby!!!

All I can say is “well, it’s about time!” Grilled chicken done right is as delicious as it comes and KFC has sweetened the pot some more by offering anyone and everyone a chance to sink their teeth into this wonderful new product. See the nutritional info on this carb-free menu option at KFC now. My fellow low-carb blogger and recipe queen Dana Carpender is also super-excited about this promotion which you’ve probably seen on television. Check out the nifty ad here.

KFC has attempted to sell non-fried chicken before, but sales have always been lackluster at best. Maybe if those of us who are livin’ la vida low-carb all show up on Monday, April 27, 2009 for this special FREE promotional giveaway and give the new Kentucky Grilled Chicken a try that they’ll see the benefit of offering a much healthier low-carb option to their customers. This could be a small, but highly effective way for us to show our support for a company willing to cater to our unique nutritional needs. CLICK HERE to find the KFC nearest to you.

While you’re there, be sure to grab yourself a side of healthy low-carb green beans and a diet soda or unsweet tea for a fantastic low-carb lunch. When you’re done, be sure to mosey on over to the KFC Contact page to let them know what you think! Of course, you can leave your feedback in the comments section below as well. I’m anxious to hear what you think about the new Kentucky Grilled Chicken. And did I mention it’s FREE on Monday? Just checking.

4-27-09 UPDATE: The verdict is in on the Kentucky Grilled Chicken and here’s the instant YouTube video review Christine and I recorded today:

Denny’s will give the ultimate bailout to America during Tuesday’s promotion

Were you one of the tens of millions who tuned in last night to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers squeeze by the Arizona Cardinals in a nail-biter Super Bowl XLIII by a score of 27-23? It was an exciting game for fans of professional football regardless of who you were rooting for, but one of the best parts of the “game” a lot of people watch the Super Bowl for was a really cool FREE offer coming up tomorrow morning.

Click here to find out more about the FREE Grand Slam offer from Denny’s restaurants advertised during the third quarter of Super Bowl 43.

I’ve been watching quite a bit of football over the past few weeks with the college football bowl games as well as the NFL playoffs. Yes, I’m a big fan of the pigskin and the advertisers know they have a captive audience for their commercials, too. Have you seen some of the new ones from the fast food companies? OH MY!

It shouldn’t be surprising, but they all are trying to take advantage of people becoming more health conscious by introducing new menu items that are supposed to be a little more “healthy” to eat. Unfortunately, their definition of that word is up for debate and falls short of the mark of what you and I may deem “healthy” to mean.

Click here to take a look at some of these new “healthy” menu items available at Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, and Long John Silver’s.

Jason’s Deli becomes the first American restaurant chain to eliminate HFCS

Last year in my local Spartanburg, South Carolina neighborhood I saw a brand new restaurant go up (yeah, so what else is new these days, right?), but this one seemed a little different. It was a place called Jason’s Deli and I immediately tuned it out of my head because I thought all they served there was sandwiches. As a result, we didn’t try the restaurant out until last month when my church’s new choir director hosted a meet-and-greet social there with the choir members (Christine sings alto and I sing tenor in our church choir).

When I walked into Jason’s Deli, I couldn’t help but notice that is was indeed a rather unique dining experience unlike your typical restaurant of this type. While Subway, Blimpies, and the others in the “deli” category are doing their thing to distinguish themselves as a healthy alternative to typical fast food, Jason’s Deli took it even one step further. I was highly impressed by their commitment to remove trans-fats and MSG from their menu in 2005 in addition to offering fresh organic foods instead of the cheap stuff that seems to dominate the food industry in modern-day society.

That attention to detail that first caught my attention last month has been taken to an entirely new and exciting level that I’m pleased to share with you today. The Beaumont, TX-based Jason’s Deli officially announced today that they have completely eliminated high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from its expansive menu in all of its stores nationwide. Did you hear that? NO MORE HFCS AT JASON’S DELI! This is huge, people, since high fructose corn syrup is in EVERYTHING these days.

CLICK HERE to read more about this historic decision by the owners of Jason’s Deli, find out why they decided to take this action now, and enter the contest for your chance to win some FREE gift certificates to support the first HFCS-free restaurant chain in America.

A friend of mine sent me this the other day and I thought it was quite telling about the current state of affairs in the food and restaurant industries:

THE TOP 20 WORST FOODS IN AMERICA FOR CALORIES

You’re not gonna believe what the worst foods are, including the highest calorie salad (EEEEK!), “health” burger (YIKES!), breakfast (HOW DO YOU MESS THAT UP?!) and more. Get all the down and dirty details by clicking here.

Hardee’s one of the few restaurants still catering to low-carbers

You can literally count on one hand the number of restaurants in America who care enough about people who are livin’ la vida low-carb to offer them their very own menu: Cracker Barrel, Captain D’s, and Hardee’s. That’s pretty much it!

Of course, you can always make your own “low-carb” meal regardless of where you dine out as I demonstrated in this recent blog post, but it’s kinda nice having a restaurant understand the needs of your diet and offering menu items that fit within that criteria. It makes me feel special as a customer and I’m more willing to spend my money at a place like that than one that forces me to try to come up with my own dishes. Am I the only one who feels this way?

With restaurants running away from the low-carb consumer like Ruby Tuesday and Subway, I think it’s very appropriate for us to reward those restaurants who show a commitment to our lifestyle change and not thumbing their noses up at us. We have needs just like all those people on a low-fat diet do. And yet virtually EVERY major restaurant chain has “low-fat” menu offerings. Where’s the equality with low-carb, hmmmm?

That’s why I was so happy to find this Hardee’s web site advertising their Low Carb Thickburger. If you are a diehard low-carb fan like me (and most of you who visit here are!), then you are gonna eat this site up! It’s got so much humor and facts about the healthy low-carb lifestyle, you’ll not believe it’s from a major fast food restaurant chain. And yet it is! Somebody in the corporate headquarters for Hardee’s has GOT to be a true blue low-carber and I wish I knew who it was!

Anyways, there’s a video on that site promoting the Low Carb Thickburger with a Goldilocks and the Three Bears spoof that I wanted to share with you here:

TOO FUNNY! Gotta love that devotion to low-carb living–NO PORRIDGE FOR ME because “I’m not going back to that lifestyle again!” HA! I do believe I’ll be grabbing me a Hardee’s Low Carb Thickburger real soon! How about YOU?

Fat people no longer welcome dining out in Mississippi?

As someone with a Master of Arts degree in Public Policy and Government, I’ve come across quite a bit of dopey legislation on the local, state, and federal government level over my years of studying and examining many different proposed bills. But Mississippi House Bill No. 282 that was drafted by two Republicans and a Democrat and submitted to the Mississippi House of Representatives today might just take the cake for the most insane obesity-fighting legislation of all-time.

The “Three Blind Mice” of Mississippi: Mayhall, Read, and Shows

In an attempt to respond to the rising obesity crisis happening in the state of Mississippi right now where they earned the dubious distinction as the first state in the U.S. to surpass 30 percent obesity rates in 2007 (30.6 percent), state House of Representatives members W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, both Republicans, and Democrat Bobby Shows thought it would be prudent to LEGISLATIVELY require restaurant owners to discriminate against fat people wanting to eat at their establishment. I kid you not, that’s what the bill says and they are DEAD SERIOUS (hat tip to Regina Wilshire for telling me about this one)!

Click here to read why this legislation has some rather obvious unintended consequences that the “Three Blind Mice” of Mississippi have overlooked and how even more discrimination against fat people would be permitted by the government to take place. YIKES!

Last week I was interviewed by my local newspaper here in South Carolina–Spartanburg Herald-Journal–for an upcoming feature story about how I’ve turned my weight loss success into a business and an interesting topic of conversation came up that coincides with a blog post I’ve been working on for a while. I told the freelance writer who was interviewing me last Friday that we were just on our way out the door to go to lunch at Denny’s and she said, “Well, you can’t eat anything healthy there, can you?”

Opportunities to educate never end.

I explained how with just a few substitutions of key ingredients that inevitably end up on all the dishes (in the case of Denny’s, that would be pancakes or French fries), you can have a very nice low-carb friendly meal that will keep you on the straight and narrow as you pursue a healthier lifestyle. She was surprised because conventional wisdom is that the large portions and high calories served when dining out will prevent you from eating healthy. Not necessarily, as I’ll SHOW you today.

After I shared this YouTube video about which restaurants are good for low-carbers, I decided to start taking pictures of the foods I order so you can visualize exactly what I’m getting when I go out. These were taken at various times over the past few months and are a good representation of the kind of things you can order when you visit your favorite casual dining restaurant (I may hit fast food in a future blog post, but I’m not a big fan of it).

Click here to see pictures of actual menu items that me and my wife Christine ordered from a variety of popular casual dining restaurant chains, including Denny’s, Ruby Tuesday, Olive Garden, Applebee’s, and Golden Corral.

The next installment of our growing by leaps and bounds YouTube video series is now online and today you’ll have a chance to WIN a really neat FREE prize just for watching and commenting on the video. WOO HOO! If you haven’t heard about the videos my wife Christine and I are making on YouTube yet, it’s a new series we have called “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb On YouTube.” This is an extension of the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” family to help spread the positive message of the low-carb lifestyle even further.

In Episode 6 today, I thought it would be important to discuss how to eat out when you are on the low-carb lifestyle. A lot of low-carbers erroneously think that their life has to change dramatically to the point that they can’t go to a restaurant anymore when they start eating this way. Oh contraire, my dear, and today’s video will share how you can stay committed to livin’ la vida low-carb AND go out to eat, too! WOO HOO!

See where Christine and I recommend you go and NOT go while low-carbing:

Some of the better restaurants to visit when you are livin’ la vida low-carb include Denny’s, Ruby Tuesday, Hardee’s, Golden Corral, Captain D’s, Cracker Barrel, and The Cheesecake Factory (although pretty much ANY restaurant you can make your own low-carb meal). But there are a few places you probably should avoid: Olive Garden, IHOP (puts pancake batter in their EGGS!), Applebee’s (although you CAN find ONE low-carbish meal if you play around with it), KFC, and McDonald’s, just to name a few.

Leave a comment for Episode 6 and you could WIN $20 in FREE GIFT CERTIFICATES for Captain D’s restaurants which recently added a healthy choices menu for you to pick and choose the grilled meats and veggies that suit your healthy low-carb lifestyle! YEAH for that! Watch the video, give feedback, and tune in to the next video to see if you were a winner!

See all of our other YouTube videos and comment on them, too:

- Promo video–A half-minute promotion of the new video series
- Episode 1–Introduction of Jimmy & Christine Moore
- Episode 2–What kind of fruits can you have on a low-carb diet?
- Episode 3–What kind of veggies can you have on a low-carb diet?
- Episode 4–What does a low-carber do for something sweet?
- Episode 5–Why is fat so healthy for you on the low-carb lifestyle?

Special thanks to everyone who has subscribed to our YouTube videos and we just keep growing and growing in viewers each time we record a new video. We’ve been trying to do about one a week (which is a minor miracle if you knew the crazy busy schedule I am on right now!), so we appreciate your positive comments. Keep the feedback coming and let us know if there is a specific topic you’d like for us to tackle. E-mail us anytime at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.

Captain D’s steps up their menu to serve the low-carb consumer

When the most popular low-carb friendly restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday decided to get rid of their famous low-carb cheesecake in May 2006 followed just a couple of months later by scrubbing their entire low-carb menu for good, I put out a public challenge to the restaurant industry.

“This leaves the door wide open to another restaurant to step it up and cater to the growing obese and diabetic population. If you make the menu attractive enough to people and still keep the items healthy, then it very well could work. Who’s it gonna be? Anyone? The millions of us who are livin’ la vida low-carb are waiting…patiently…anyone?”

Applebee’s has tried but they are too afraid (of what?!) to call it a low-carb menu item while my former favorite fast food place Subway went the other direction earlier this year when they REMOVED the low-carb wraps from their menu. Idiots!

Then you’ve got places like the Olive Garden serving a “no sugar added” dessert to diabetics that contains GOBS of sugar and nearly 70g carbohydrates! EEEEK!

Well, despite these futile attempts by other well-known restaurant chains, I was pleased to share with you recently about Cracker Barrel and their “Low-Carb Offerings” menu which is perfect for low-carbers. Now I have another restaurant chain to add to the small, but growing list of courageous companies willing to offer people who are livin’ la vida low-carb some healthy low-carb alternatives–the Nashville, TN-based Captain D’s.

Click here to find out more about Captain D’s new “Carb Counter” meals and why people who support the low-carb lifestyle should applaud this restaurant chain for catering to our needs.