The Argument for Meatless Burgers
Why I became a huge fan of meatless burgers, and I’m not even vegan.
My boys love burgers. If you ask them what they want for lunch, dinner and probably even breakfast, the answer is a resounding, “burger.”
I was surprised at the specificity of their answer the last time I asked what they’d like for dinner though: “Beyond Burgers,” they said in unison. And I’m pretty sure the whole room heard my jaw fall off. How did you know??”
I was introduced a couple years ago to meatless burgers. You’ve likely seen or heard of “Beyond,” or “Impossible Burgers, which are some of the brands they’re known by. They were so easy to make — literally just “cooking” the patties, and serving. No measuring teaspoons of this, or half cups of that to make the burger patties like I usually would.
I fell in love. And from that point on if we were going to have burgers for dinner, there was no doubt as to whether or not they would be Beyond Burgers, the easiest dinner to prep on the planet.
But I never advertised what kind of burgers we were having for dinner, at least not intentionally. For some reason I thought that if they knew the burgers I was serving them at home were not actually made of meat they wouldn’t like them as much.
It feels silly to admit it because now I realize, why does it even matter? As long as it tastes the same as the burgers they usually eat when we’re out in restaurants (which they absolutely do), why would my kids care?
Is this just another one of those things that adults just overthink too much? Children have a beautiful way of seeing things for exactly what they are, just one of the many awesome things about them.
We are by no means a vegan or even a vegetarian family. But I am intrigued with the idea of “reducetarian,” a movement with a quest “to improve human health, protect the environment, and spare farm animals from cruelty by reducing societal consumption of animal products.”
I started to understand just how unnecessary eating beef is once I learned how much deforestation is occurring around the world just to produce a hamburger. Since most of the world’s soy crops go to meat animals as feed, and because huge amounts of land are needed to grow those crops, “the expansion of soy farming to feed the growing global demand for meat is contributing to the destruction of fragile tropical rainforest ecosystems like the Amazon,” per FoodPrint.org.
“South America’s rainforests have been especially impacted by the expansion of meat production over the last 20 years. In the Brazilian Amazon alone, 2,251 square miles of forests are destroyed every year — the equivalent of about 2 football fields a minute.”
Read that again and let it sink in. At least for me, the argument over meat vs. meatless burgers immediately becomes a no contest situation.
Did I write this to advocate for animal rights and protecting the environment? I wish I could say that were true. Really, my intent is just to share the latest shortcut, or “parenting hack” I’ve discovered in meal prep. It just so happens to be an option that is cruelty-free and environmentally friendly, and that makes me love it even more.
Give it a try. It’s a great option for a super easy, but still healthy meal. The most labor intensive part is going to the store to buy pretzel buns and guacamole (yes, this is indeed the yummiest way to eat them!) and even that can be avoided with enough advanced meal planning.
Now that the secret’s out, I’ll be more specific about “what’s for dinner.” Burgers, MEATLESS burgers that is.
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