The chips are down: Burger King launches low calorie 'satisfries'

Burger King's new 'satisfries' (AP)

Health fanatics rejoice: the world's second largest fast food chain is to start selling a low calorie french fry in the States.

Dubbed 'satisfries', these new healthier fries apparently contain 20 per cent fewer calories than their full-fat siblings, due to a new batter designed to absorb less oil.

Burger King claims that a small portion of 'satisfries' contains just 270 calories, as opposed to the 350 in a portion of regular fries - barely more than a tenth of the recommended daily amount for an adult male.

Burger King insists that people won't be able to tell the difference between the new fries and the old. They use the same ingredients, but the proportions of ingredients in the batter blocks more oil.

"You need to make things as simple as possible," says Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King's chief marketing officer.

As per capita consumption of french fries has declined over the years, frozen potato suppliers have been working on ways to reduce fat and calories in french fries, said Maureen Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research & Education, an industry group in the US.

"It's actually not an easy thing to do to because consumers want the same taste and the same texture," she said.

Burger King has been very careful to keep news of its new wonder-fries under wraps - even going as far as to get reporters at last week's launch in New York to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

A spokesperson for Burger King in the UK admitted that the fries were not yet available in Britain, but that they might be in the future.