Because It Tastes Good
Growing up I ate well, my mother is still a wonderful cook and I miss many of her home cooked meals. When I got married I started asking her for many of her recipes that I favored from casseroles to salads and everything in between. The past two years brought sweeping change to my life when I took control of my health and made drastic changes in the food I ate.
I now look at food differently and have a better understand of nutrition, which only solidifies my commitment to these changes, all in the name of health. On October 30th, it was 2 years since I ate my final piece of meat. To be honest, I can’t even tell you what it was. Obviously, it wasn’t that good or memorable. Dairy products and all added oil quickly followed in my “transition phase” but as I started to see the benefits from a plant powered lifestyle, I asked myself, “Why did I eat so bad for so long?”
Many people will claim to be or feel healthy, some might be able to justify their reasoning. Others fail to come up with an reason or say “because it tastes good.” That leads me to this story that was shared by a Facebook friend, Jessica, who is a health and wellness coach. The story, “The 70 Ingredient Cancer Promoting McRib Sandwich: It’s Not Real Food.” It’s “disturbing” to note this monstrosity contains 70 ingredients, some of which are banned in other countries! Yet, people flock to this cult classic “because it tastes good.”
My rule now when I read the ingredients, if I can’t pronounce it, I don’t need to ingest it. The McRib pork patty is described as a “franken-creation” using “restructured meat…disposable innards of the pig such as tripe, heart, and scalded stomach…” Preservatives in the “pork” include propyl gallate and BHA. Not sure I want to eat pig scraps that have been processed to look like meat. By comparison my basic bean burger recipe contains 5 ingredients, most of which you have in your pantry. The most offensive, could be the kidney beans, if the aluminum cans they come in are not BPA free. Other ingredients include oats, brown rice, tomato paste and spices.
The bun hold 40 ingredients alone! My whole wheat bread, which I could make into buns contains 6 ingredients. Two big offenders in the McRib bun, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil. “Ammonium and calcium sulfate are commonly used as a soil fertilizer but Azodicarbonamide is used in the manufacture of foamed-plastics in the US and is banned in Europe and Australia.” You want to ingest these chemicals, why? “Because it tastes good.”
The McRib sauce is mainly HFCS, but does have common ingredients found in other BBQ sauces, many that I would use in my own reipces with the exception of soybean oil, sodium benzoate and carmel color. How can you screw up pickles? Just ask McDonalds, as “potassium sorbate is a genotoxic and mutagenic compound” that is used as a preservative. Pretty amazing (but not surprising) to break down a McRib and read about the crap in their sandwich. So I ask again, why would you eat this?
Now, there is nothing special about a Steve burger, hell I just came up with the name for this story, as it’s nothing more than a basic bean burger recipe. The ingredients, 1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained, 1/2 cup of dry oats, 1/2 cup cooked brown rice, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and spices (of your choosing). These burgers take about 20 minutes to make, bake and serve. Best part they are good for you! This recipe is very basic, but there are some amazing tasting bean burger recipes on the Internet that I have made. Why? “Because they taste good!”
One Steve Burger is 263 calories, 1g total fat, 0 cholesterol, 71mg sodium, 49 total carbohydrates and 16g of protein. Compare that to the McRib, 500 calories 26g (40%) total fat, 70mg cholesterol, 980mg sodium (41%), 44g carbohydrates (processed) and 22g of protein. It’s really no comparison, but many will still opt for the McRib over the Steve Burger “because it tastes good.” Not sure this culture will ever be able to overcome the “because it tastes good” excuse. Given time for your taste buds to adjust you might just give up the McRib and opt for a bean burger, not only for your health but “because it tastes good.”
