After years of reviewing fast food in the US and UK, I'm still shocked by the size differences. Take a look at the most drastic ones.
Joe Avella
- I host a youtube series where I compare fast food chains in the US to the UK.
- From McDonald's to KFC, I've been consistently shocked by how much larger US portion sizes are.
Along with my Food Wars cohost Harry Kersh, I've reviewed dozens of fast food chains and compared their menus between the US and the UK.
Fast food reviews have been my profession for well over three years now. (Yeesh!)
Producing Food Wars has set my focus on the nutrition, ingredients, and portion sizes of the biggest international fast food and snack brands.
My cohost Harry Kersh and I have reviewed dozens of fast food chains including McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and Domino's.
If you haven't seen the show yet, allow me to break the news: we tend to have much bigger portion sizes in the US. Drinks, fried chicken, pizzas — they're all bigger.
What's obvious: the menus of major chains can differ significantly from country to country due to cultural tastes.
What's less obvious: the portion sizes also vary, and in some instances, quite drastically.
From McDonald's fries to Domino's pizza, here are some of the most drastic differences I've noticed over the past three years between US and UK fast food.
To assess these differences, Kersh and I order just about every menu item from a major fast food chain and compare items between each country.
It's a lot of fun, and people seem to like it! Over the years, the most significant observation has been that the US has much more substantial portion sizes than the rest of the world.
There are too many fast-food chains to include in one list, so we'll cover only a few bigger chains to give you an idea of the differences we've seen over the years.
Let's start with McDonald's. American small and large drinks are both 89% bigger than their British counterparts.
The first Food Wars episode compared McDonald's in the US and the UK. One of the first things we compared was the drink sizes.
When reviewing the footage Kersh and the team had sent over from the UK, I thought there was a mistake since the size difference was so staggering.
And a medium drink in the US is 55% bigger than a UK medium.
The small size is 89% bigger in the US than in the UK. The medium is 55% bigger. And the large is 89% bigger in the US compared to the UK.
Funny enough, the US medium size is actually 24% bigger than the UK large.
The largest Chicken McNuggets option in the US is double that of a UK McDonald's. That's 40 pieces compared to 20 pieces.
We also compared McDonald's Chicken McNugget sizes.
The UK has three options for McNuggets: 6-piece, 9-piece, or 20-piece.
In the US, McNuggets come in five sizes: 4-piece, 6-piece, 10-piece, 20-piece, and 40-piece. So the largest size in the US is double that of the UK.
At 190 grams, a large fry in the US was almost double the UK's largest size, which weighed around 125 grams when we measured them.
The US large fry is 46% bigger than in the UK. I love fries as much as the next guy, but I think I'll stick to the small size.
If you particularly like fries — or chips, as they say in the UK — you should head to an American KFC and order a large fries. They're a whopping 100% bigger than the British large.
When we shot the KFC episode, I was surprised by the different fry sizes.
Our US large fry weighed in at 300 grams when we measured. The UK's large fries were half that at only 150 grams. This means the US large is 100% bigger.
You're also getting about two more pieces of chicken in a bucket of fried chicken at a US KFC.
KFC's largest bucket of chicken in the UK is a 14-piece, whereas, in the US, you can get a 16-piece bucket.
Also, the smallest bucket you can order in the US is an 8-piece, whereas you can order a 6-piece bucket in the UK.
At Domino's, it's not just sides and drinks that are different. The largest pizza size in the US — an extra-large — is 2.5 inches bigger than the largest pizza size in the UK — a large pizza.
In Food Wars' Domino's episode, we compared the UK Domino's largest pizza, which is 13.5 inches across, to the US Domino's largest pizza, an extra-large pie that's 16 inches across.
That's a 2.5-inch difference in diameter.
American small, medium, and large pizzas are all half an inch larger than their British counterparts.
Though 2.5 inches may not sound like a big difference, it actually amounts to 30% more pizza in the US.
The UK Domino's large is approximately 154 square inches, while the US large is approximately 201 square inches.
This means the largest pizza Domino's offers in the US has a 31% larger surface area compared to the UK's large. That's almost a third larger!
My favorite size discrepancy comes from Starbucks. As a coffee fanatic, I was pleased to find the largest iced coffee portion sizes are 50% bigger in the US compared to the UK.
Every Food Wars fan knows I love drinking coffee.
The Starbucks episodes are a treat for me because I get to try everything on their menu and get hyped up on too much caffeine.
The largest UK iced coffee — a venti — is 20 fluid ounces, whereas the largest US size — a trenta — is 30 fluid ounces, a 50% increase.
After three years, I've concluded that size naming conventions can be misleading in the US.
Before I started this series, I assumed that simply ordering a small menu item meant that it was an Ok amount to eat. But as Kersh and I have learned over these past three years, this isn't necessarily the case.
Fast Food sizes can feel really arbitrary at times.
So, sharing this info on our show Food Wars works as a reminder to consumers of how much you're actually eating.
Hopefully, you can make more informed decisions with this information.
In my experience, a small isn't as puny as it sounds in the US. So I tend to stick to those sizes to avoid overeating.
Overall, US fast food chains tend to offer more food for consumers' money. This can be great if you value a good deal, but it may not be your healthiest option.
As a result, I usually stick to ordering smaller sizes of fries, drinks, and pizzas in the US to help me avoid feeling like garbage after eating too much fast food.
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