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Burger King has confounded fast-food fans after unveiling its newest menu item, a burger-less cheeseburger that consists of a bun and 20 slices of American cheese. Earlier this week, Burger King Thailand shared a first look at the cheeseburger, which the fast-food chain has named the “real cheeseburger,” on social media. “Not for fun, this is for real!” a 9 July post on the official Burger King Thailand Facebook reads. The post also included a photo of the cheeseburger, which is piled high with melted cheese slices and nothing else. According to Burger King Thailand, the limited-edition menu item launched on Sunday and is available for a reduced price of 109 Thai baht ($3.14), compared to the usual price of 380 baht ($10.95) for a cheeseburger. In the comments of the Facebook post, the fast-food chain also informed customers that they can “order more cheese” to add to the burger for just 20 Thai baht if they are “not satisfied”. On social media, the cheese-focused burger has sparked both confusion and disgust among viewers, with many questioning why the fast-food chain would release the menu item. “I am, quite literally, gagging,” one person tweeted, while another said: “My stomach hurt just looking at this picture.” According to someone else, the cheeseburger is the “most degenerate food item [they’ve] ever seen”. “Taking Thailand off my bucket list,” another person joked in response to the latest Burger King menu item. As for why the burger exists in the first place, food blogger Richard Barrow, who tried the new cheeseburger himself, according to his Twitter, claimed the “trend” in Thailand is to “put cheese on literally everything”. “A trend in Thailand is to put cheese on literally everything. Now Burger King has joined in with the real cheeseburger. Though I think they forgot the meat,” Barrow tweeted alongside pictures of his own order of the cheese-packed burger. In the post, Barrow then revealed that he “struggled eating even half” of the burger, despite loving cheese. “I love cheese but I struggled eating even half of this ‘burger’. Maybe I should grill the other half? What do you think?” he wrote. Although the cheese on the cheeseburger appears to be melted slightly in Burger King Thailand’s advertisement for the menu item, Barrow’s photos show 20 slices of non-melted cheese stacked neatly inside a sesame bun. As for whether the cheeseburger comes with anything apart from cheese, such as condiments, Barrow confirmed in response to one curious viewer that it’s “just cheese”. While the majority of reactions to the Burger King cheeseburger were negative, there were some who admitted they were intrigued by the fast food item. “I NEED,” one person tweeted, while another said: “I would 100 per cent eat this.” In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for Burger King confirmed the cheeseburger, which will only be available until 13 July, “will not be featured in any Burger King location outside of Thailand”. Read More McDonald’s unveils major change to its most iconic burger What diet drinks don’t have aspartame in them? McDonald’s increases price of five menu items Burger King launches ‘real cheeseburger’ stuffed with 20 slices of cheese Google Doodle celebrates pani puri, the much-loved Indian street snack Nigella says extravagant dinner parties are a thing of the past. I wish she was wrong

A cooking teacher who lost her sense of taste and smell and “never fully recovered” after catching Covid last summer has decided to shut her business because she can no longer gauge the quantity needed or quality of ingredients in her dishes. Raisa Ali, 51, said to continue teaching people how to cook Indian food would be like “the blind leading the blind” as her sense of taste and smell have never been the same since she caught Covid in July 2022. The mother-of-three, who lives in Kingston, south London, knew “something was missing” after her husband Akbar, 52, and her students found she was being heavy-handed with the spices but could not tell the difference. Raisa made the difficult decision to close her Sweet Sultry Spice cooking school after teaching a class how to make the Indian spice mix garam masala and realising that, while she knew the recipe from memory, she could not smell the pungent ingredients. Covid has “killed the joy of cooking” and dried up her source of income, but Raisa has now accepted what happened and is looking for a fresh start. Raisa, who has three sons, twins Zain and Zakir, 16, and Yusuf, 19, said: “I can’t dwell on this anymore and just have to move forward. “My main mode of cooking and learning and teaching has been to follow my nose. “I used to make my students take whiffs of everything at every stage. “I decided to close the school because when I lost my sense of taste and smell, my passion died. “Covid killed the most important part of food for me.” Raisa started giving cooking classes in her kitchen after completing a nutrition course in 2018 and taking advice from a friend. “I did a one-year nutrition course and started working online, trying to build a small business, but it wasn’t going anywhere and I was feeling very isolated,” she said. “A friend of mine came over and said ‘you’re doing it all wrong, why don’t you just open a cooking school’. “I was scared but she was like ‘feel the fear and just do it anyway.” She soon found herself giving two or three classes per week to groups of around five people for between £60 and £70, teaching them to cook Indian cuisine. “People would come over to my house and they wouldn’t leave – it was great,” said Raisa who moved to the UK in 2008 after her husband was transferred to the country for work. “It was a really great experience and then when it went away, I just thought now what am I going to do?” Just when her budding business started taking off, bringing in between £500 and £800 per month, Covid struck. “Suddenly Covid’s happening and from one day to the next the business totally died,” she said. “The income that I had was gone and everything that I had built was gone. “I spent that first year (2020) feeling sorry for myself.” Then while travelling back to her native California, in July 2022, Raisa caught Covid and spent two weeks in bed. “I spent the first two weeks in bed and then started to recover slowly,” she said. “When I came back, I had brain fog, I couldn’t smell things properly and I couldn’t taste things properly.” She noticed her taste buds were not firing on all cylinders after eating some tortilla chips which tasted like “cardboard”. “I’m eating them and thinking, I don’t understand, what is this?” she said. “And it has just never come back properly.” While Raisa started to recover after spending two weeks in bed, some of her symptoms lingered for months. Once lockdown rules lifted, Raisa went back to giving cooking classes, but it was not the same. In January 2023, while teaching a group how to make garam masala from scratch, Raisa’s sense of smell was put to the test. “When they could smell it across the room then I knew, at that point, that this wasn’t going to work for me because it would be like the blind leading the blind,” she said. “I remember telling my customers, look I’m telling you everything from memory and my past experience because I don’t have have my sense of taste and smell. “Isn’t that depressing?” On another occasion, she was cooking a chicken dish and a student asked about the ingredients but Raisa could not “taste anything”. “It turned out it was black pepper but I couldn’t even taste it,” she said. Her husband and children also started picking up on strong flavours which appeared relatively mild to her. “I knew something was missing because when I cooked things for my husband he would say ‘oh, you put a lot of this in’,” Raisa said. “But I could not tell the difference.” Even to this day, Raisa says she has not fully recovered her sense of taste and smell. “If I would sum it up, Covid killed the joy,” she said. “I just feel like I don’t want to bother anymore because I feel like my drive is gone. “So I decided, either I can be upset about it or I can reinvent myself again.” Raisa has decided to see her Covid nightmare as a positive step towards new beginnings. “If you are cooking something, you have to be able to smell and taste the ingredients and I knew I couldn’t do that so I decided it was time for a complete shift,” she said. She has not been to see a doctor about her long-lasting symptoms as she believes there are many other people who are “far worse off” and that the NHS already has “too much on its plate”. She is now looking to explore other business opportunities which do not rely on having a sense of taste and smell. “Sustainable living” is one area in which Raisa is particularly interested, but what this will look like in practice remains to be seen. “I want to get rid of my carbon footprint,” she said. “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, it’s just what I want to do.” For more information about next steps, follow Raisa on Instagram. Read More Covid Inquiry could see unredacted Johnson WhatsApp messages despite legal clash I decide what’s relevant, says Covid inquiry chair in Boris WhatsApp row Covid Inquiry head making ‘no comment’ on legal row over Johnson messages Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

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