[Note that the new "meals" sound almost paleo.  Also note the
incredibly incoherent statement by a University's head of
nutrition...]

Burger King Unveils Bunless Burgers    
Wed Jan 14, 5:06 PM ET
 
By DAVE CARPENTER, AP Business Writer 

CHICAGO - It has come to this in America: Burgers are losing their
buns. Some of them, at least. Burger King's rollout of breadless
Whoppers this week is a nod to the low-carb craze that's sweeping the
nation — and the latest evidence that the burger wars are taking a
turn for the healthy. 

Smaller chains Hardee's and Carl's Jr. dumped the bread from some
hamburgers last month, going lettuce-wrapped instead, and TGI Friday's
restaurant has started serving a bunless cheeseburger, too. 

But hold the bun odes, please. Burger-lovers will have the last say,
and experts say the bun shouldn't be written off from restaurants'
regular fare, much less from its place in modern American food lore. 

"This won't be a big segment of the (burger) market," predicted Jerry
McVety, a foodservice industry consultant based in Farmington Hills,
Mich. "I don't see it lasting very long." 

Besides, he noted, a Whopper without a bun is almost an oxymoron. "The
bun is almost the least of my worries," he chuckled. 

McDonald's and Wendy's, the other two largest burger purveyors, aren't
biting on bunless for now. Spokesmen for both those chains, which have
added entree salads and taken other steps to assuage customers' diet
concerns, said Wednesday they have no plans to include bunless burgers
on their menus. 

With good reason, according to Carl Sibilski, an analyst for
Chicago-based Morningstar and frequent fast-food patron. "Bunless
burgers don't sound so appealing," he said. 

The price of the new product risks being unappealing to customers,
too: It's the same with or without bun, per Burger King's
recommendation to its 8,000 restaurants. 

The surge in popularity for the high-protein, high-fat,
low-carbohydrate Atkins diet is what prompted a move that once would
have been unthinkable in the hamburger business. Customers who used to
ask "Hold the pickle" now are saying "Hold the bun"; can "Hold the
burger" be far behind? 

Burger King took out a full-page advertisement in USA Today on
Wednesday to tout its unlikely new product, showing a giant Whopper
with dotted lines marking the outlines of where a bun would normally
be. The Miami-based chain is selling them in plastic salad bowls, with
knife and fork, after reporting an increasing number of such requests
over the past year. 

It also is introducing Whopper meals that substitute salads for French
fries and bottled water for soft drinks and promising a new line of
salads, so company officials aren't staking their future on a bunless
trend. 

"A large majority of our customer base still enjoy fully loaded,
high-quality cheeseburgers, so we don't see this as some kind of sea
change," said Russ Klein, Burger King's chief marketing officer. "But
it's a change that we felt was warranted in order to give all our
customers options they feel comfortable with in terms of diet." 

The bunless Whopper has 3 grams of carbohydrates, compared with 52 for
a regular Whopper. 

No matter how you slice it, though, such "gimmicks" as bunless burgers
don't impress dietitians like Connie Diekman. 

"The issue is we need to burn more carbohydrates — more physical
activity — and eat less," said Diekman, director of university
nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. "The better option
would be a smaller burger, maybe less often, and still have it on a
bun so you control the calories and the fat." 

Ricardo Real, a tourist from Mexico who lunched at a Burger King in
downtown Chicago on Wednesday, was unimpressed when informed about the
bunless burger and chose a regular hamburger instead. "A burger
without bread? That's crazy," he said. "That's not a burger."