Ah, Wendy’s. Ye fast food strumpet threadbare, buns so soft and patties so square. The subtle differences between fast food restaurants are actually pretty interesting. Wendy’s burgers are square and slightly dry, McDonald’s has the uber-greasy mush patties, Burger King has that char-broiled taste. Yet every one of them has a fake-chicken chicken sandwich on their value menu. See? There’s always something that unites us all.

And now for something completely different. Wendy’s recently introduced a new style of fries to consumers everywhere. Following recent trends, they’re branded as a more natural french fry – real potatoes, skin left on, 0g trans fat oil, sea salted, etc. Basically all your health food trends wrapped up into one. However, when the item at hand is deep fried potatoes, it would seem that everybody wins.

How sad is it that nowadays a fast food place has to leave the skin on to prove that their fries are actually made from potatoes? Either way, at least it’s moving back toward that end of the spectrum. However, I doubt somewhere like McDonald’s could get away with leaving the potato skins on their fries, mostly because they’re probably not even real potatoes. I’m pretty sure they’re actually made of the Mr. Burns-shaped produce that was featured on The Simpsons last sunday. I’m actually kind of surprised McDonald’s allowed them to show that. Just goes to show you that the truth is out there.

Honestly, I would have to say that out of all the fast food places, Wendy’s has always had the most natural fries; they were often not crunchy enough and slightly soggy, which would lead me to believe that they were actually real potatoes back then. Either that or ground up gym socks. They also were never salty enough. So having tasted these new fries, it’s strange how different yet similar they are. They’re clearly more potato than they used to be. They just have so much more substance and are robustly packed with potato. They also have a more tender, slightly bland flavor since they’re real. They’re still lacking somewhat in salt, though. When you can grab fries off the top and they’re not salty enough, something went wrong. They’re definitely less greasy than everyone else’s fries, but they’re also less crispy, definitely on the softer side. Putting a few of them into your mouth is practically like eating a spoonful of mashed potatoes. However, I’d much rather have that than the fries that are crunchy on the outside and have nothing on the inside. These are real fries from real potatoes that will really fill you up. I have no idea if they’re more expensive, with a large fry coming in at $2.39, but that’s two bucks I’m definitely going to be spending again.