A local consumer agency urged Koreans on Sunday to cut down on eating chicken, citing the high levels of sodium and fat in Korean-style fried chicken.

The Korea Consumer Agency released a survey of 22 products from the top 11 fried chicken franchises in Korea, showing the differences across brands in terms of nutritional content, flavor and price per gram.

The chicken with the highest sodium content was the spicy flavored chicken from Mom’s Touch, which had 552 milligrams per 100 grams. Pelicana’s fried chicken had the lowest level, with 257 milligrams.

One spicy flavored chicken contains more sodium and more sugar than the daily average recommended by the World Health Organization, the agency said.

Meanwhile, all of the products were found to have very low levels of trans fat, with an average of just 0.03 gram per 100 grams. According to standards from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, this means that fried chicken can be considered trans fat-free.

The survey also found that the amount of capsaicin, a chemical in chili peppers that creates a spicy taste, differed by as much as 3.6 times across different brands. The spiciest chicken was Toreore’s Real Hot Flavored Chicken with 2.9 milligrams of capsaicin per 100 grams, and Hosigi’s Spicy Sauce Chicken was the least spicy with just 0.8 milligram.

The survey revealed that spicy chicken was the most preferred type of flavored fried chicken among consumers, ahead of other options such as garlic, soy sauce, green onion or honey.

Hosigi, whose products include two chickens each, showed the best consumer value. Its 18,000-won fried chicken and 20,000-won spicy sauce chicken costs consumers 16.56 won and 12.52 won per gram, respectively.

Among the single-chicken products, Toreore’s 15,000-won five-grain fried chicken offered the best value among non-flavored chicken at about 21 won per gram, while BHC’s 17,000-won spicy chicken was the best buy among spicy flavored products at 15.3 won per gram.

BHC products were found to offer the biggest servings, while the most expensive brand overall was Goobne chicken.

The survey was spurred by consumers’ complaints to the agency about fried chicken franchises putting too little chicken in their products, or the flavoring being too strong. The agency also found it problematic that chicken franchises do not offer consumers accurate nutritional facts about their products.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)