we wanted to find out all the differences

between Wendy's in the UK and the US.

This is "Food Wars."

In the UK, Wendy's iconic Frosties come in three sizes,

junior, regular, and large.

In the US, we actually have four Frosty sizes,

junior, small, medium, large.

We're going to pour out the largest Frosty

to see how big it is compared to the US's.

The classic hamburger at a Wendy's

is called a Dave's,

named after the founder, Dave Thomas.

Ours come in singles, doubles, and triples.

Our burgers are the same in the UK.

They also come as singles, doubles, or triples.

Joe: Now we're going to weigh a US triple.

Pretty close. 14 ounces for our triple.

Now, while a triple might be the official limit

on burger sizes at Wendy's,

Wendy's enthusiasts have come up

with something called a Meat Cube.

This is a secret menu item

where you actually take an extra meat patty

and add it to this,

so you get four patties,

which I think adds up to around a pound.

Joe, I'm officially challenging you

to a Meat Cube showdown.

The fastest person to eat the entire Meat Cube wins.

You think you got it?

I accept your challenge, Harry.

Let's do this.

Harry: Three, two, one.

Joe: Start.

This is a lot of beef.

I see why the triple is the limit now.

Time?

Conner: 1:07.

I wish I had more time to chew it.

[coughing]

Need the sauce. Need some moisture.

[grunts]

The buns!

Harry: Oh, God.

[Joe stammering]

Joe: How'd I do?

Harry: Done.

Yeah!

Woo!

USA, baby!

Conner: How do you feel?

Oh, terrible.

I feel absolutely terrible. [coughs]

And yet elated that I won.

Well, now we know why the US has such an obesity problem.

OK. That's quite enough of that.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Another iconic Wendy's menu item is the Baconator.

In the UK, these just come in one size, as a regular.

Of course, in the US we also have the Baconator,

but we have a smaller Baconator

known as the Son of Baconator.

Something incredibly unsettling about

a burger having a child that's also a burger.

This Baconator giving birth to that Baconator.

Harry: And, of course, we're going to weigh

the regular Baconators to see whose is bigger.

The highly regarded Wendy's nuggets

that come in regular or spicy. Love the spicy.

They come in units of four, six, and 10.

Nuggets in the UK only come in two portion sizes,

four and eight.

Wendy's, of course, has fries,

and those fries in the US come in four sizes,

junior, small, medium, large.

Our fries also come in four sizes,

value, small, medium, and large.

Let's weigh our large fries to see who's getting more.

Ours is way less.

Hmm.

What's that all about?

Another side that is probably unique to Wendy's,

I can't think of any other fast-food place that does this,

is Wendy's chili.

It has been on the menu since it opened back in 1969.

In the US, you can get your chili,

ugh, for whatever reason,

in two sizes, small and large.

In the UK, we only have one size of chili,

which is this one.

We're going to weigh it against the largest size

in the US to find the difference.

Finally, let's compare drinks.

In the US, you can get three sizes of drink,

small, medium, and large.

On the internet, it does not specify

how much fluid ounces are in any of these.

If I had to guess, too much; way too much;

way, way too much.

In the UK, drinks come in three sizes,

small, medium, or large.

And these are advertised as being

12, 16, and 20 ounces, respectively.

Let's measure the largest drinks

to see which country's is bigger.

So, our large drink actually came out as closer

to 18 ounces than closer to 20.

I will say that in the UK

you fill up your own drink,

so maybe I just needed to fill a bit more.

OK, so their large is 18 ounces.

What is our small?

20 ounces. So our small is bigger than their large.

Man, we love drinking our calories in this country.

We love drinking our calories.

For this episode, we thought it might be fun

to compare some prices from Wendy's in the UK and the US.

Let's use this Baconator as a basis for comparison.

In the US, a Baconator on its own, no combo,

would cost $7.39.

The same burger in the UK will cost you

£6.29, which, at the time of recording this,

was around $8.90, which is a 20% increase.

However, if you were to turn this into a medium combo,

yes, this is the medium,

the price would go up to $11.19.

Whereas in the UK, adding a Baconator to a combo meal

will only increase the price to £7.09.

So, actually, a US meal is now 11% more expensive.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Harry, don't get ahead of yourself.

Wendy's in the US has an ace up its sleeve,

the 4 for $4 promotion.

[clears throat]

You can get your choice of a junior bacon cheeseburger;

a junior cheeseburger, seen here;

a double stack; or a crispy chicken sandwich

along with junior fries, four nuggets,

and a value drink. All of this, 4 bucks.

Sadly, Wendy's has not replicated that deal

here in the UK, not even in the form

of a 4 for £4 deal.

If you were to buy all the components

of a US 4 for $4 here in the UK,

it would cost you £6.36, which is about $9.

That's a 125% increase on the US price.

The real damage here is done by the nuggets,

which cost £2.99 on their own in the UK.

That's around $4.24,

aka more than the entire 4 for $4 combo in the US.

So it looks like the US provides more value

if you're a little smart about what you order

and how you order it.

Say you walk into a US Wendy's

and you want to get the Baconator combo meal.

Just how unhealthy is it, you ask?

Well, I will tell you. OK.

The burger, 960 calories.

Fries, 360 calories.

And the drink, medium, right? Coke, OK,

it's going to be 370 calories.

This whole shebang, 1,690 calories.

That's 84% of your daily allowance.

What about the same meal here in the UK?

Well, our Baconator is actually more calorific,

as it comes in at 1,010 calories.

However, the fries are just 239 calories,

and the Coke, just 200,

leaving the total at 1,449.

That's a 16% decrease from the US.

What, you ask, is the most calorific thing

on the Wendy's US menu?

It is this burger in front of me.

The pretzel bacon pub triple.

Look at this thing.

Goodness.

1,520 calories.

106 grams of fat. 45 of those grams are saturated.

That's 135% of your daily fat allowance.

Sadly, that's a US exclusive, and our most calorific item

is actually just the Dave's triple.

In the UK, one of these is 1,204 calories,

with 81 grams of fat, of which 33 grams are saturated.

Thankfully, Wendy's discloses a full ingredients list

for both the UK and the US,

so let's take a closer look

at some of the menu items right now.

Here is everything that's in a Wendy's Baconator in the UK.

Strap in, because this is a long ingredients section.

Premium bun. Wheat flour, water, sugar, yeast.

Mayonnaise. Rapeseed oil (78%), water.

Ketchup. Tomatoes, 148 grams.

American cheese slice. Cheese (70%) (milk).

Beef patty. 100% beef.

Bacon. Sugar, water.

Table salt. Salt, anticaking agent, sodium ferrocyanide.

Seems like a lot, right?

Well, guess what?

We got the UK beat again.

Here's everything in a US Baconator.

Start with the premium bun.

Enriched flour, which is wheat flour,

malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron,

[fast-forwarding]

sodium nitrite. [exhales]

That's all of it.

Whew. Now, that is a long list.

And is there anything in there

that you should be worried about?

Well, we can start with sodium nitrite,

which is found in the applewood-smoked bacon.

Sodium nitrite is a chemical used to cure meats,

and it gives them that appealing pink color,

which is perfect for bacon.

It's also super toxic.

It's prohibited for sale on certain websites, like eBay,

because it's been used in homicide attempts,

and a dental assistant once died

after eating just a 1-gram tablet by mistake.

Thankfully, there's none of that in the UK,

but just like the US,

we do have lecithin in our American cheese.

According to some academics,

there are a "worrisome number" of scientific studies

which have suggested that it can promote depression,

which is kind of the last thing that I need.

Outside of the Baconator,

there are one or two ingredients you should watch out for

in the pretzel bacon pub burger.

The pretzel bun contains potassium chloride,

which in normal food doses is fine,

but is one of the three ingredients

in the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injection.

Apparently, enough of it would cause

an abnormal heartbeat and cardiac arrest.

Let's be honest.

If anything in this burger is stopping your heart,

it's gonna be the cholesterol and saturated fat

long before the potassium chloride.

The pickles also contain polysorbate 80.

Now, this is commonly used as an emulsifier in some foods,

but with pickles it's used as a solubilizer,

which means that it helps other ingredients

dissolve in the brine.

The bad news is studies have suggested

that it can cause colon cancer in mice. Yikes.

Here's everything you'll find at a Wendy's in the UK

that you won't find in the US.

And here is everything you can get at a US Wendy's

you can't get in the UK.

This is ridiculous. [laughs]

Let's start with the burgers.

Now, as far as I can tell,

we only have three exclusive burgers,

one of which I'm not even sure is an exclusive burger,

which is this one, the cheeseburger deluxe.

The reason I'm not sure if it's an exclusive

is because in the US you guys have something called

a junior cheeseburger deluxe,

which looked very similar to this.

And I just wanted to check if

what you guys consider junior

we consider deluxe over here.