Day 40 - What-A-Burger!

There are moments when food taste so good you can't help but groan.  Since I've been eating vegan, I've tried many new dishes and some of them have been groan-worthy.  A few days ago, I picked up some grilled vegan Boca burgers at the grocery store.  I've eaten veggie burgers before and enjoyed them and thought this would be a quick meal when I didn't have time to cook.  But I didn't expect the reaction I had when I bit into the burger.

First, let me say that I put the Boca vegan burger on a Food For Life Whole Wheat Bun with some dill pickles, catsup and sliced onion.  I heated it in the micro before I fried it in a non-stick pan lighty sprayed with PAM.   The last burger I'd eaten was probably a Big Mac in the days before I decided to eat vegan.  But the the taste of this burger was like a little bit of heaven.  I don't really remember what a Big Mac tastes like, but it couldn't have tasted better than this veggie burger did at that moment.

Just for fun, I decided to do a nutritional analysis of my burger vs. my former favorite Big Mac.  I know it's not an apples to apples comparison, but I don't care.  I used to eat Big Macs and now I eat Boca vegan burgers.

The vegan burger was 70 calories with .5 grams of fat and 13 grams of protien.  It had 0 grams of cholesterol and 4 grams of fiber.  The  Food For Life Sprouted Wheat Burger Bun had 150 calories with 2.5 grams of fat, 6 grams of protein, 0 milligrams of cholesterol and 5 grams of fiber.  There's no added fat in the buns, the only fat coming from the whole grains.  So, to recap, we have 220 calories, 3 grams of fat, 19 grams of protein, 0 milligrams of cholesterol and 9 grams of fiber.   The onions and the pickles don't add anything and the catsup is mostly sugar and adds 20 calories .   Pretty good, right?  So now lets look at a Big Mac.

A Big Mac comes in at 590 calories with an gut-busting 39 grams of fat and 24 grams of protein.  It also has 85 milligrams of cholesterol and  3 grams of fiber.   Side by side, they stack up at 240 vs. 590 calories, 3 vs.39 grams of fat, 19 vs. 24 grams of protein, 0 vs. 85 milligrams of cholesterol and 9 vs. 3 grams of fiber.  Yikes!

The strangest thing about this whole burger experience was that I got the exact same feeling of satisfaction from the veggie burger that I used to get biting into a Big Mac.  My palate has been reset by a plant-based diet and now that simple vegan burger tastes like heaven.  I don't know if I'll ever eat another Big Mac.  I can't imagine what it might do to my digestive system if I did.  But for now, I'm happy with my tasty veggie burgers.  It's Day 40 and I'm feeling great.  I'm happy.