THE HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE

THE HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE

Have you seen the latest Burger King commercials? They now have a veggie burger. It is being touted as the healthy alternative to their regular meat hamburger. The actors in the commercial are standing around heartily eating this new veggie burger and commenting on how it tastes just like their regular meat hamburger. I have a question. Does this mean that their regular hamburger has very little meat, or does the veggie burger actually include meat? Just a question.

Not to be outdone, KFC is now out with what they call a healthy alternative to their batter coated deep fried chicken. They are offering batter coated deep fried vegetables. Hmmm. Let me think about that one.

Somehow someway the word has gotten out that vegetables are healthy and meat is unhealthy. Here is an inconvenient little fact. Humans are a part of the animal kingdom and animals, it turns out are either herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. Humans are omnivores. That means that our bodies function best on a diet that includes both meat and vegetables. In fact, if you choose to eat only meat or only vegetables you would have to supplement your body with the nutrients you would be missing from that exclusive diet.

I once met with a physician’s assistant for a regular appointment. Unknown to me she was a vegetarian. In her zeal for that religion, she decided to teach me how to become a vegetarian. She told me it was easy. You just can’t eat anything with a face. I asked her if I could eat clams and oysters. She went screaming from the room.

I remember when the soybean farmers, in an effort to increase the demand for their product, spread the word that lard or meat fat of any kind, was bad and oil from soybeans was good. Wow, did that ever catch on. It is actually hard to find lard in the grocery store now. Here’s another little fact, the abuse of anything is not good, fat from soybeans or from animals. It turns out that fat is fat and oil is oil whether its origin is animal or vegetable. 

The message here is simple. If you choose to be a vegetarian, that’s great. If you choose to eat meat, that’s also great. I personally don’t think either diet regimen should be a religion. Also, be careful about what you believe and the source of the information. On a regular basis we hear about some product that is harmful to your health and almost before the ink dries on that proclamation, we are told that the product is actually ok. How many times have we heard that coffee is bad or that red wine is actually healthy? What is the actual truth? Only time will tell. 

A few years ago when I lived in Seattle, it was reported that a group of young mothers from Bellevue, at that time a higher income suburb of Seattle, had their babies on a low cholesterol diet. A serious danger to the children. They had heard the headlines and bought into it. That episode caused me to coin the phrase “Bellevue housewife” which identifies to me people who jump on the latest food fads or taboos. 

This final example. My father smoked cigars most of his life and ate gravy on his biscuits and mayonnaise on his sandwiches virtually all of his life. He lived well into his nineties. I don’t recommend that. Nor do I discourage it. You cannot pick your genetic makeup. I know of people who can smell of a bakery and gain weight, while others eat desserts every day and remain trim. I guess life just isn’t fair. 

More people are sickened by worry over their diet than actually eating the food. Think about it.

Ron Scarbro