Hardee's New "Healthy" Campaign is One Jive Turkey

Oh, fast food. You evil mistress. We go to you when we're feeling weak or in need of comfort. Yes, it's you we eat when we eat our feelings. We all feel guilty about it, but we all secretly love you.

Now Hardee's wants to help us bypass (ha!) that guilt by offering healthier, lower-calorie options.

Meet Hardee's new Turkey Thickburger. That's right. The chain that prides itself on massive hunks of 100 percent Angus beef (presumably sacrificing an entire cow for each gigantic burger) is now serving turkey burgers.

Why on earth would Hardee's feel the need to cut down calorie content? If Gut Check has learned anything from the company's ads, it's that 1) you're not a man unless you consume lots of beef, and 2) a Size 0 model can chow down on a 2/3-pounder with the juice dripping down her face without a care in the world.

Why mess with a good thing?

Thickburger: 770 calories

Turkey Thickburger: 480 calories

Even allowing for the fact that promotional photos of food have no basis in reality, the turkey burger pictured at the top of this blog post does look tasty.

Chrissy Wilmes

The reality.

Then again, even factoring in Gut Check's lack of photographic skills, the actual product bears a striking resemblance to stuff served in high school cafeterias, and in real life delivers a similar lack of flavor and un-foodlike, spongy texture.

Did we say "lack of flavor"? We meant to say "no flavor whatsoever." Unless you count mustard and mayonnaise, which it was smothered in.

This is one pasty patty.

Gut Check suggests that if you're of a mind to eat a burger with half the calories, order a damn Thickburger and cut it in half.

*Miss Turkey