Myth: Kentucky Fried Chicken has been selling genetically engineered chickens and/or rats and/or ersatz chicken.

Truth: False, false, and false. There have been jokes for years that Colonel Sanders was trying to breed chickens with six drumsticks, but nothing like the rumors that:

• “Kentucky Fried Chicken stopped using chicken in favor of a genetically engineered meat that’;s cheaper, and that’;s why they changed their name to KFC.” Hello! Isn’;t KFC’;s slogan still “We do chicken right”? One KFC hoax specifies “a study at the University of New Hampshire” to authenticate itself; no such study exists. The reason the company changed its name was to de-emphasize the word fried in their expanding menu, as well as to position their product more effectively in a broader marketplace (in other words, to shed the urban and Southern stigma).

• “They use rats instead of chicken, which is why the pieces don’;t look like the chicken you fry at home.” Rats are not and have never been used. America’;s fast-food franchises have strict hygiene standards. Interestingly, whenever there’;s been an outbreak of food poisoning, it’;s been in beef products. But you’;re right that the chicken you get in fast-food restaurants doesn’;t look the same as when you cut up a chicken at home. Blame it on the thick layers of crunchy crust that everybody loves.

• “They use pressed chicken.” Although some chicken items (such as breaded cutlets) in some restaurants (not KFC) may be processed and reshaped chicken, they are definitely chicken meat. The same holds for fish fillets, which are pressed and re-formed, unless you’;ve hooked a loaf-shaped fish lately.

KFC is a subsidiary of Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., the same people who own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Their Web site (www.kfc.com) provides additional information.