Lunchtime Rant: Garden Burger

On my way to having lunch out today, I ran into Mexicali. I usually don't pay much attention to it, but for some reason a tiny memory of a menu item I saw there before resurfaced in my mind.

Garden Burger.

I wasn't sure why I was inside Mexicali. Maybe it was fate. Destiny. Anyong meets Garden Burger = what?

I had to know.

And so I ordered the Garden Burger. For a product that didn't really entail chasing after and butchering a massive four legged animal with eight stomachs, it certainly cost a lot more than a regular burger. But meh, so what? That's the paradox of modern existence: Things that are good for you are inevitably more expensive.

That's why mothers insist that children eat all the vegetables on their plates. "Those veggies are damned expensive, child! EAT! EAT! I want to see you shovel those peas in your mouth faster than the Abu Sayaff running for cover!"

Anyway, back on topic.

Garden Burger.

I sat down, and waited for this strange food item to arrive. It was a paradox among paradoxes, a burger with vegetables instead of meat. It was the anti-matter of burger existence.

And so it arrived. And it looked moderately good. There it sat on my plate. In a wheat bread bun with lettuce and tomatoes and a burger patty that wasn't meat. I picked it up, examining it, even as my head pulled another hazy memory from some forgotten instance:

"Real Oats"

Ah, right. The Garden Burger was made of oats... and other vegetable products. Conditioned by modern urban living the thought of oats pulled another word.

Fiber.

Fantastic. Here in my very hands I hold the panacea for every modern man. A hunk of fiber, cleverly disguised as meat, free from the grease and fat of cow corpse grind. Fiber. Amazing how advertising has nearly brought this aspect of food to near sainthood.

So how does it actually taste?

Sadly, it tastes like mashed potatoes, rolled around in oats, flattened into a patty, then fried to a golden brown.

Needless to say it was underwhelming. Sure it was healthy, but that leads to the second paradox of healthy foods.

It must taste bad.

If you find something that's supposed to be good for you and it actually tastes good, then there's obviously something in there that is actually bad for you, or will give you cancer, whichever is worse.

And so I chewed, looking at the rest of my burger. It was odd, the color of the patty inside was the same as the wheat bun. So much so that it didn't look like there was a burger at all, just a bun, with some bread in between, lettuce, tomatoes and another bun.

I downed it with generous amounts of water, hoping that somehow, I would manage the herculean task of actually getting it out of the way and in my gut before lunch hour ends.

Somehow, I do. And I stand, full from water more than burger, and walk out of Mexicali.

Next time, I'm going for the burrito.