31 days of left handed Whoppers

Somehow the fact that my favorite food has its own month devoted to it managed to escape my attention -- until now. Thanks to A Hamburger Today for enlightening me, but May is National Hamburger Month! So what's that mean? I'm not exactly sure, but I'm pretty sure it gives everyone license to eat as many hamburgers as they want for the next 27 days. Granted, I don't need an excuse to do that, but some people do and, well, here it is!

In honor of hamburger month (not to be confused with cheeseburger month, which I think is August), I encourage all Americans to go forth and support their local establishments by eating at least one burger per day during the month of May. Can't get a burger on Monday? No problem...just eat two on Tuesday! I personally might save all of my burgers until the last week of the month and eat myself through the best seven days of my life.

And, since it's hamburger month, you might see an increase in the number of burger-related facts and stories here at Mega Munch, starting with this one:

On April 1, 1998 Burger King made fast food history by taking out a full-page ad in USA Today to unveil the first ever left handed Whopper. The sandwich, according to the original press release, was "re-engineered to fit more comfortably in the left hand, thereby reducing condiment "spills" for left-handed hamburger lovers." This fast food miracle was accomplished simply by rotating the condiments 180 degrees, thus "redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger."

Like any new product launch, the BK marketing team did their homework. Turns out, approximately 1.4 million of the nation's 32 million lefties eat at Burger King every day and until then they were forced to consume their favorite sandwich at the risk of a lapful of pickles, lettuce and onions.

In the photo below, you'll noticed the 180-degree rotation of the condiments in action. A bit of initial training was involved at the employee level, but after the first few they probably got the hang of it. On the left is the left-handed Whopper and on the right is the regular Whopper. Notice the placement of the fries and drink are also on the left side -- an extremely convenient detail for southpaw snackers.


Astute readers (i.e. those with a date function on their watch or the energy to check the top of the page on which the ad was printed) soon figured out that the wacky Whopper was really an April fools joke. The next day, BK issued another release confirming the prank. In it they noted the thousands of customers that actually visited locations across the nation to request the new burger, including many that asked if Burger King offered a right-handed version.