Quantcast Vegetarian StarMichael Pollan Favorite Food Rules: Sometimes You Need To Fake It

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Last March, Michael Pollan asked readers of the New York Times Well blog to submit rules for healthy eating habits.

After over 2,600 responses were taken, Pollan picked his favorites.

We’re liking some of the responses, like not leaving the table until you’ve finished your fruit.

However, we’d have to disagree with reader submitted rule #6:

“Never eat something that is pretending to be something else; eg., no “texturized vegetable protein” or veggie burgers (fake meat), no artificial sweeteners, no margarine (fake butter), no “low fat” sour cream, no turkey bacon, no “chocolate flavored sauce” that doesn’t contain chocolate, no Quorn. If I want something that doesn’t taste like meat or butter, I would rather have the real thing than some chemical concoction pretending to be healthy.”

We beg to differ on some of those items.

Take a Boca Burger versus a McDonald’s Happy Meal burger, for example.

The Happy Meal burger contains these stats:
275 calories
106 fat calories with 11.8 grams of total fat
35 mgs of cholesterol
387 mgs of sodium
30.5 grams of total carbohydrates
12.3 grams of protein
6% of daily calcium
13% of daily iron.

In contrast, the Boca Burger’s numbers are the following:
90 calories
25 fat calories and only 3 grams of total fat.
5 mgs of cholesterol
280 mgs of sodium
320 mgs of potassium
4 grams of total carbohydrates
3 grams of dietary fiber
14 grams of protein
15% of daily calcium
10% of daily iron

Looks like this “faker” Boca Burger pretending to be real is clearly the better option.

For the entire list of Pollan’s favorite reader submitted rules, visit nytimes.com.

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2 Responses to “Michael Pollan Favorite Food Rules: Sometimes You Need To Fake It”

  1. Crystal Says:

    I hate when people try to argue against vegan analouges. It’s always so mystifying when someone asks me why vegetarians eat things like veggie burgers when they don’t want to eat meat. *shakes head*.

    This just encourages my dislike of Pollan.

  2. Mandrake Says:

    Vegan and vegetarian analogs are odd because they attempt mimick precisely what you refuse to eat. Like an animal rights activist wearing fake fur – it just doesn’t make sense. That said, I think there’s a huge difference between veggie alternatives and veggie analogs. Black bean burgers and carrot burgers that are obviously not meat are one thing. But Boca “burgers” and other substitute “meats” on the other hand are a completely different creation.

    Also, your comparison is a misleading and fallacious one. No one ever said burgers were a health food. They are a food meant to be enjoyed on rare occasion, as a treat. And that’s the whole point. People fall into the trap of considering fake alternatives (like veggie burgers) as health foods merely because they are better than the original product.